For those who don’t need to tap their savings yet, however, ultra-low interest rates have some hidden advantages. For example:

You can pay your bills early. I used to hoard the money I needed to pay big annual or semi-annual bills, such as property taxes and life insurance. I’d send in the payments at the last possible moment to squeeze as much interest from our savings as possible. Now, I don’t bother. As soon as I get the bills, I set up the electronic payments and hit the send button. Life’s a lot simpler this way.

You save time. Back when the average savings account paid less than 1%, while online banks paid 5% or more, it was worth doing a little research to find a great rate and to move your money around once in awhile. Now that the gap has narrowed so dramatically—the best online accounts pay about 1%, while the average savings account rate is around .25%–it’s hardly worth the bother unless you’ve got a substantial cash stash.

It’s easier to avoid fees. If you have some cash savings, you can avoid a lot of the silly fees your bank wants to levy—without having to worry about the opportunity cost of keeping your money in a non- or low-interest-paying account. If you have to park $2,500 in your accounts to avoid fees, it’s likely smart to do so, since you’d earn only about $2 a month on the money in a higher-rate online bank account. If you’re required to keep a five-figure balance to avoid fees, though, it may be worth finding a new bank.

There’s no reason to take a chance with money markets. If you still have cash in a money market mutual fund, check the rate you’re getting. It’s probably less than a quarter of a percentage point, and may be as little as a tenth of a point. Remember that money market funds aren’t FDIC insured, so you do have a risk of losing principal, however small. Here’s one of the rare instances where you get a better deal with a safer product—you’ll get a higher yield investing in CDs or an online bank.
It’s clearer that there are no truly “safe” investments. Back when rates were higher, it was tempting to just park money in higher-yield bank accounts rather than risk it in the stock market. The problem with that approach is that your money had no chance of beating inflation over time—your purchasing power was being eroded by inflation and taxes. Today, it’s pretty obvious that you aren’t going to beat or even keep up with inflation if you put all your money in “safe” investments. You need to take at least some risk to get the long-term growth you’ll need to beat rising costs.

Answer: It’s not entirely clear why you care what the interest rate on the card is, if you’re not carrying a balance. Whether the card charges 18.24% or 1.824% makes no difference to your bottom line.

If you’re objecting on principle, you should know that credit card companies can charge pretty much any interest rate they want. The good news is that you have plenty of options if you want a card with a better rate. The average credit card interest rate is somewhere around 16%. Many issuers offer single-digit teaser rates to people like yourself who have high credit scores. You can check out sites such as CardRatings.com CreditCards.com and NerdWallet.com to find lower-rate cards.

Since your issuer refused to lower your rate when asked, it either doesn’t think you’ll bolt to another credit card company or doesn’t care if you do.

Answer: Blame the economy. Both individuals and businesses are wary about borrowing money. Less demand typically drives down the cost of a product. The product in this case is loans, and the price is the interest rate. With little demand for loans, banks don’t need to compete much for depositor funds and so aren’t paying much on their deposit accounts.

Another big factor is the Federal Reserve, which is keeping interest rates low to try to stimulate borrowing, spending and the economy. The Fed’s big fear is that higher interest rates would choke off the economy’s recovery and send us spiraling into another recession.

How long will this low-interest period last? Nobody knows. We could see higher interest rates if the economy really takes off. In that case, higher demand for loans probably would bid up interest rates and the Fed would switch its focus to containing inflation, which typically means it would try to raise rates further. Many economists are predicting a slow recovery, however, which means low savings account rates are likely to be with us for a while.

In the meantime, you can look for slightly higher rates at sites like MoneyRates (http://www.money-rates.com) and Bankrate.com. Recently the national average for one-year certificates of deposit was under 0.5%, but several financial institutions on those sites were offering rates above 1%.

If you’re being offered rates much above that level, you’re either dealing with a riskier investment or being asked to lock up your money for a considerable period. Neither is a good idea if this money is your emergency fund or you otherwise need it to be safe and accessible.

Issuers are boosting rates to cope with higher defaults (charge-off rates now exceed 10%) and new restrictions on raising rates that take effect in February.

Higher rates are putting a squeeze on many customers. The old advice, to simply “move your business elsewhere” if you don’t like how you’re being treated, still works if you have high (750+) credit scores. Otherwise, you face a rougher road.

“There is no guarantee that other companies want your business, and no guarantee they’ll offer you better rates even if they accept you,” said Adam Jusko, IndexCreditCards.com’s founder. “The best advice we can give is to have a few cards in your wallet, and patronize whoever treats you the best. If you’re currently relying on a single credit card, you may want to seek an additional card before you need it, so you don’t find yourself in a desperate situation in which you’ll take any offer you can get.”

Answer: It’s extremely unlikely that one inquiry dropped his score by 45 points. Chances are something else changed on his credit reports. Check the balances and credit limits his credit card issuers are reporting. Any narrowing of the gap between the two (such as higher balances or lower limits) could have contributed to the sudden drop.

You can’t really dispute a credit score drop, but if incorrect information is being reported by his lenders, you can dispute that.

In any case, he should be able to boost his score by getting those balances down, preferably below 10% of his credit limits. Even if he pays his balances in full every month, he needs to be concerned about his credit utilization, since the balances reported to the credit bureaus are typically the balances on his last statements.

photo credit: barsen

A credit card industry insider recently made an interesting argument that it is.

If you remember, Bank of America pledged on Oct. 6 to stop raising interest rates, then turned around and announced it would start adding annual fees to some customer accounts next year (although from the mail I get, some customers have already been told their accounts will be subject to the fees).

Odysseas Papadimitriou, formerly of Capital One and now CEO of CardHub.com, argued at WalletBlog.com that under laws regulating credit cards, fees and interest rates are considered essentially the same thing. (You can trace this to the 1996 Supreme Court case Smiley v. Citibank.) He calls Bank of America’s actions a marketing bait and switch, and says if the bank proceeds with its plan to implement annual fees it will in effect be raising the costs on existing balances–something that’s prohibited under the credit card reform act now scheduled to go into effect next year.

Papadimitriou points to Chase’s aborted plans to add “inactivity” fees to low-rate balance transfer accounts as another example of promise breaking.

What I’m reminded of, though, is all the times in the past when issuers tried to foist stupid fees on its customers–inactivity fees and fees for not carrying a balance being two of the most egregious examples from the 1990s.

The savviest users always bolted and issuers had to back down. The fees that remained–late fees and overlimit fees, in particular–were mostly paid by the less-savvy consumers.

An issuer that drives away all its smart, credit-worthy customers won’t be in business for long. Previous generations of credit card executives had to learn this lesson the hard way. Looks like the current generation will, too.

Answer: There are no hard-and-fast rules about when to refinance. When refinancing costs were higher, you typically needed a 2-point drop in rates for a new loan to make sense, but that’s no longer true.

Generally, though, you should avoid refinancing if the new loan wouldn’t recoup its costs within two years. Although the loan you’re considering doesn’t charge “points” — a percentage of the loan paid to lower the interest rate — you’ll still be charged other fees. If the lower payments would offset those fees within 24 months, and you plan to stay in the house at least that long, you might consider replacing the loan.

Another factor to consider is how much longer you’ll remain in debt with a new loan and how close you are to retirement. Ideally, you’ll want to be mortgage-free by the time you quit work.

When you’re just a few years into your loan, as you are, this is less an issue than if you’ve paid down your mortgage for five or more years. In the latter case, you should either consider opting for a shorter loan — 15 or 20 years, say — or make extra payments on a 30-year loan if you otherwise wouldn’t pay off the mortgage by the time you’re ready to retire.

Answer: You’ve dated yourself just by using the word “usury.” The short answer is that no, there are no longer effective laws limiting the interest rates credit card companies can charge. A U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1978 pretty much negated state usury laws.

The credit card reform act will limit when issuers can raise rates but does not cap them.

I feel foolish for having this debt at all, but I lost my mortgage business and my husband is in construction. We have had a really bad four years. If they had just allowed me to continue making the payments per our original agreement, I would have been able to continue reducing the balance and they would get their money. This way, they won’t receive any money at all. How does this make sense?

Answer: Credit card issuers know full well that their latest rate increases will send some of their borrowers to Bankruptcy Court. What they’re hoping is that they’ll get enough interest from those who can still pay to offset the losses from those that can’t.

All may not be lost. Many issuers who have instituted these rate hikes offer an “opt out” provision that would allow you to keep your original rate if you agree to close the account. You should contact your issuers to see if this option is available. Closing accounts can ding your credit scores but will cause far less damage than a bankruptcy.

Be realistic about your financial situation, however. The amount of the proposed payment increase indicates you’re carrying substantial debt on those cards. Unless your financial situation improves dramatically, it’s probably only a matter of time until a misstep or another change in terms causes you to fall behind.

If that’s the case, bankruptcy may be a better option than continuing to struggle with debt you’ll never repay.

• Increased their interest rate–19% (up from 15% in February survey)
• Increased their fees–14%
• Lowered their credit limit–14% (up from 8% in February survey)
• Increased their minimum payment due–12%
• Reduced their rewards program–9%

This national telephone poll was conducted for Credit.com by GfK Custom Research North America from June 12-14, 2009. A total of 1,000 interviews were completed, with roughly 500 female adults and 500 male adults. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points for the full sample.

For more on dealing with the credit crunch, read:

• Banks have declared war–on you
• 6 steps for paying off toxic debt
• The credit card party is officially over
• Thaw out your frozen credit