You borrow money from a lender to pay off bills and you pay off all your credit cards and other debts as one consolidated monthly payment to the lender, ideally at lower average
APR than your current rate.
Not exact matches
If the
APR is lower
than current mortgage
rates, the student loans are not a priority.
Not only might the post-introductory
APR be higher
than your
current rate, many balance transfer cards will retroactively charge interest on the amount that you already paid.
The
current stretch of annual percentage
rate (
APR) increases is the longest in more
than a year and boosts the national average
rate on new card offers to 14.35 percent.
The 16.74 % variable
APR applies to any purchases you make or balances you transfer right from day 1, so unless your
current credit card has a much higher
rate than that, you probably don't want to transfer your card debt over to this card or make any large purchases you can't pay off right away.
If the standard
APR is higher
than the
rate you're charged on your
current cards — and you even occasionally carry a balance — it probably doesn't make sense to use the new card after the intro period expires.