# Good bye Citibank, it was fun while it lasted **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 26, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bye-citibank-it-was-fun-while-it-lasted/519043 "2009-11-26T17:24:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2009, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bye-citibank-it-was-fun-while-it-lasted/519043/41 "2009-11-30T22:16:00Z")
> [@MN\_Maenad](#): > > I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop – the annual fee. That’s when we’re telling them to stuff it. I could be wrong, but I really doubt we’ll see high annual fees on credit cards for people with good credit any time soon. Or, at least, it will still be easy to get a credit card with no annual fee from _somewhere_. I’m defining a “high” annual fee as one that’s higher than the tangible benefits you get from the card itself. If I get ~$100 in rewards a year from a credit card, I’ll willingly pay a fee for that, as long as I still come out ahead. As long as the credit card companies make some money from people with good credit ratings who pay off their bills every month (the deadbeats), they don’t really want to drive them away entirely. And the last thing they want is for the people who actually have money to start spending only cash. ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bye-citibank-it-was-fun-while-it-lasted/519043/42 "2009-12-01T00:17:48Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > It was fun while it lasted. > > I got some great deals by using my credit cards to my advantage. I bought a car at 3.9% for the life of the advance, unsecured, when car loans were going at 6.7. Paid it off in 2 1/2 years instead of 60 months. Saved a bundle. Nearly put in a cash advance to clear the second mortgage on the house(80/20 loan). If I could get that 3.9 again I still might. > [@Una\_Persson](#): > > I got the same notice. Something like Citibank raising my rates to…you know what? I don’t even know. I haven’t paid credit card interest or taken a cash advance since Ronald Reagan was in office. They can raise rates to 100% for all I care. I never carry purchases and the only time I use cash advances is when they offer me a special rate I can lock in and it’s a better deal than conventional ways of funding a purchase like the aforementioned vehicle. Other than that, yea, I don’t know what the rates on my cards are. I never pay interest. I take ~400 a year out of my discover card(that we charge EVERYTHING to) and don’t pay them a penny in fees or interest. Sure merchant fees have raised the prices of everything, but they did that before I started using credit cards, so I may as well play the game too. > [@MN\_Maenad](#): > > I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop – the annual fee. That’s when we’re telling them to stuff it. This would cause us to start closing accounts. We’re wondering if this will ever come around, because that would be irritating. Still, consumer credit cards, while it’s the lifeblood of the everyday purchasing power of many individuals, just isn’t that huge a part of the economy. [2.5 trillion as of Sept 09](http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g19/Current/), and declining fast. Contrast this to the [$12 trillion mortgage market](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/business/11ripple.html?ex=1373515200&en=8ad220403fcfdf6e&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink) in the US and you’ll see why the mortgage crisis is a much bigger problem. Enjoy, Steven [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bye-citibank-it-was-fun-while-it-lasted/519043.md?page=2)