Today?s credit card industry is becoming more and more open to credit card applications for authorized users. This type of online credit card applications come in the form of additional credit cards that can be used by anyone but are issued in the name of the applicant with a good or excellent credit history. When you want to give someone a credit card as a present, you can get it as an additional one to the credit card you?re applying at the moment. There is a special application form for an additional credit holder and he/she does get a separate credit card but still the credit account is attached to the primary applicant and the secondary credit card holder, or the authorized user, just consumes the limit on it.
Whether it?s a good practice to apply for additional credit card or not depends on a particular situation and the experience below allows you to make your personal choice in favor of it or against.
An acquaintance of mine, a woman in a strong financial standing, saw a good point in a credit card application allowing an additional credit card which she planned to give to her daughter to learn credit management. Owing to her good credit history, she could shop around best online credit card applications for credit cards with no fees, lowest rates possible and lavish rewards.
Thus, applying for a Blue from American Express with no annual fee and free rewards program, she signed up for an additional credit card and presented it as a birthday gift to her 17 year-old daughter. Perfect, isn?t it, when a teen has a chance to hold a real credit card and to learn how to manage it while it doesn?t start your credit history and doesn?t reflect negative information if there is such. With a credit card, a youngster learns how to plan his spending, to make rational purchases and even to save up. But that?s a good side of the story. The bad thing with all credit cards is that they are too convenient and, substituting cash, they get young people in the habit of not seeing or feeling the real cost of purchases. Teens may find it too easy and so attractive to shop using a credit card but their parents may find themselves paying bad interest on the card as a result.
Considering all that, does it make sense to get an additional credit card after all? But let?s face the reality and it is the following: the additional credit card holder uses the card but the whole responsibility for its charges is laid upon the primary applicant.
So, isn?t the risk too big? In Linda?s situation it was. Miranda, a college student, got access to programs of one of the best online credit card offers ? the AmEx Blue and did not think much whether or not to make the most out of them. She wandered from one shop to another, from party to party, charging a lot more than her mother could actually afford. At long last the credit report showed the number of $14,000 of debt which Linda found nearly impossible to repay. In fact, she got her credit score decreased and credit history damaged because of another person?s poor spending habits. Under the circumstances neither the mother benefited from the credit card?s terms nor the daughter learned the proper credit card management.
In an attempt to recover, Linda considered canceling her credit card, removing the existing debt off her card and assigning it to a separate account, the one of her daughter?s. But, unfortunately, it is impossible to implement. At the moment she is still facing a debt to pay off and it is not going to take short time.
Well, that?s the truth about additional credit cards and it?s not that the credit card is bad itself but it?s the improper credit management of your children, friends or colleague that makes you regret applying for it even it is the best credit card offer online.
