The current financial difficulties the major banks face today are due, in large part, to bad or marginal mortgage loans that are defaulting at a very high rate. This puts those banks with large portfolios of sub-prime loans in a tough predicament. Many have cut back or eliminated their efforts to promote credit cards as they are not willing to take any more risk. American Express and Discover are unique in this tight credit market in that they are not banks and are not facing massive foreclosures. In fact they are taking advantage of these conditions to improve their market share. This directly relates to an opportunity for accountonline.com customers to obtain a quality credit card on a different network.

If you are paying interest on any of your credit cards, you are wasting your hard earned money. Most of the cards listed above have an introductory period of at least 6 months with zero interest. Just look at your last months statement for interest payments to discover how much this alone could save you over the course of a year. This should be reason enough to take advantage of these offers.

Your credit score is determined through a variety of calculations,but the most important is the ratio of available credit to total credit extended. If you have used $5,000 of a total extended credit of $10,000, your credit ratio would be 2:1. Not bad, but if you select one of the offers above and receive an additional $5,000 in credit your ratio would move to 3:1, a much better rate that will raise your credit score over time. And a better credit score can impact your finances in many ways from refinance rates to insurance rates.

Given the current economic climate, no one really knows where the economy is headed.Some extra, readily available credit could become very helpful should you encounter any difficult times ahead. All the offers above have no annual fee so you may hold the card without any monthly expense. Consider these offers a free piece of financial security in an uncertain time.