Asking Credit card company for lower interest rate?

[lvbhappy]

I'm in the midst of paying off cc debt and mint had one of their "advice" Pop ups that suggested calling the credit card company and asking for an interest rate reduction. I haven't heard of this before and wondered if anyone had success doing it? Any tips if so?

[TheMoneyBadger]

I did it with a card about 15 years ago.  What worked well at the time was telling them that I wanted to keep using their card but I needed to find a way to make it more competitive with other cards available to me.  I asked specifically to have my rate lowered to be competitive with other offers.  Always be polite but be persistent if you get an initial brush-off.  Make it clear that you have some loyalty to them but that you have other options.  You can bring up the fact that you may ultimately need to cancel your card if they can't give you a competitive rate.

[JeffC]

I called to cancel a card one time and they asked why and I mentioned that it was my highest rate card.  They said "well, sir, what would you like the interest rate to be?" I gave them a number that I felt was reasonable and they were happy to do it.  I'm not sure why that would matter to me though looking back on it, I haven't had a balance on a credit card in 12 years. Later, I still cancelled it to make room for a card with a signup bonus.

You probably could transfer the balance to a new card if you have good credit, so maybe look into that and see if they can do better than the new option.  If not, move on over to the new one.