With the advent of the internet, the pool of knowledge has widened a lot. But this has also given way to a lot of misunderstanding and myths among people. Even the credit cards that we buy are not safe from myths. 

Different people have different opinions about financial instruments and that is the reason that many people end up making wrong choices and affect their financial stability. Any misinformation related to credit cards can cost huge. 

To help people get proper knowledge, we have jotted down five common credit card myths and revealed the truth about them. Take a look!

1. Single Credit Card is Enough

While there is no doubt that one should abstain from over-spending, having multiple credit cards does offer a lot of perks than one can imagine. All they need to do is handle their finances well and keep a track of their expenses. There are plenty of credit cards in the market that come with lucrative offers and rewards that help save some bucks and grab amazing deals on various purchases. Thus, people can surely buy more credit cards as per their needs and enjoy their benefits.

Buying a New Credit Card Affects Credit Score

While, buying a credit card does result in a “had credit enquiry”, a single one is unlikely to affect your credit score. Thus, it is important to choose the right card as per your requirements and spending habits. If a person pays credit card bills on time, they get a good credit score in turn.

2. Settling Monthly Dues Sooner is Best

It may sound tricky but this is one of the most common myths about credit cards. Every month, one starts panicking about their credit cards dues and tries to make the payment sooner so as not to hamper their credit score. 

However, the truth is while late payments do make a difference, it takes almost 30 days for that. In short, a person needs to be miss at least 30 days to actually affect their credit score. If that’s not the case, well, one can afford to miss the last date at times.

3. Cancelling Old and Unused Credit Cards

No doubt that when we don’t use a product, the best things seems is to just discard it. But that’s not the case with credit cards. Now, when person cancels their credit cards, they lose the credit line and they have less available credit to their name. This also affects their credit score, which in turn, can affect their loan application in future. Thus, it is usually suggested that people can have at least one card open for its available credit and account history.

4. No Negotiation on Credit Card Terms

Most of the people feel that they have to follow whatever terms and conditions their banks have give them. But the truth is, banks are always looking at keeping their customers. Therefore, they can make concessions in the conditions to be at your side. So, if you feel that you are paying a lot of interest or annual fee on the credit card, try contacting the company. They may waive it or offer you other perks to make it worth your while.

In case you are looking for buying a new credit card, explore our website and apply for the one that suits your needs the most. For more such articles, keep reading BankingOnTips.

Most of us opt for credit cards which benefit us in our day to day life, like cashback offers on fuel, shopping, travel etc. 40% of credit card users have cards with fuel cashbacks. This news is going to hurt us a lot.

From October 1, 2019, majorly all the banks in the country are going to discontinue the cashback credit cards at all the petrol pumps and fueling stations. This is going to come into effect after an advisory issued by Public Sector Fuel Retail companies.

All the OMCs (Oil Marketing Companies) have told the banks to terminate the cashback benefit on their credit cards whereas cashbacks and discounts for other digital payment methods like PayTM, Phone Pay etc. will still be in effect.

There are three state-run oil marketing companies in the country, namely, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. They offer cashback up to 0.75% per transaction value of the fuel purchased using debit/credit cards and electronic wallets. This cashback is reflected in the buyers’ bank account or wallet in three working days.

Government introduced this discount after the cash crunch of 2016 at the time of demonetization. The prime purpose was to encourage digital banking and payments. After three years of demonetization, the percentage of digital money transfers and payments has increased at a striking rate, however, the three oil marketing companies are still bearing the discount/cashback cost. 

When you apply for a credit card and it gets approved, that is surely a thing of joy in today’s time. But only getting a credit card doesn’t matter much, getting the best one according to your needs is important. So, what makes a credit card worth relying? Reward points, isn’t it? Every time you swipe your credit card, you get certain reward points which pay you back in one attractive deal or the other.

A lot of people consider the reward points a useless element in a credit card and that whatever additional features like extra miles or points cannot make any difference. Each reward point looks tiny at once but if you keep on paying the outstanding and all the bills on time, these reward points pile up to really reward you big, once you save a lot of them, and it is no myth.

May be, your credit card offering executive has promised you about the easiness of redeeming the reward points. But truly, it is not that easy. It is rather about how intelligently you redeem them. Be careful about the time and dates of your travel before you redeem your air miles. And if you redeem according to their conditions only, it can land you in so many layovers and abrupt timings of flights.

In case you dream about your next travel for free, just because you have sufficient air miles to sponsor that; you are mistaken. Chances are you may only get the flight tickets for those air miles, but other charges like the accommodation and the surcharge etc. are not included in it.

All your myths related to credit card rewards can be true or untrue but it wholly depends upon the kind of credit card you choose. You must check what features are going to benefit you and what kind of rewards suit to your requirements. Therefore, don’t just have a credit card for only the sake of it, but treat it has a very important financial asset which helps you at the time you most need it.