I have often heard it said that people with they could return back to some make-believe earlier period in their lives when credit card interest rates were lower. I never recall the national averages for credit cards being anything but high. Back in the day, about 15 years or so ago, the average interest rates hovered around 20%. If you were lucky you could find some offers well below that mark, and indeed you still can. A survey by the General Accounting Office in 2005 clearly stated that about 80% of the 6 largest card issuers customers had cards with less that 20% APR. So it appears that rates are not more historically high as in the past. However, this era we now have many cards that feature interest rates as high as 30 percent and fees as high as $39 a pop!

This situation and it's current result harks back to the early 1980s when a new concept called "Risk Based Pricing" grew into it's own. This system generally permitted card companies to promote cards with lower basic costs and associated fees to cardholders that were not credit challenged while extending more fees to the less credit worthy cardholders to cover the difference. Sometimes , due to anything from shifts in the general health of the economy to simple incompetence of a card firm's management, this model fails to remain static. As a result the persons who are more creditworthy are left having to cover the difference by means of manifested increases to their interest rates and fees.

Generally, according to the bankrate.com website, credit cards that contain low interest tend to be represented in what is called the Platinum Card National Rate Average"Platinum Card National Rate Average". While the fixed rate has pretty much remained stable, even dipping down below 10% in early 2006, the variable platinum card interest rate has climbed from just over 11% to well over 13% since 2005. Judging from simple interest rates alone, it would make simple sense to avoid variable platinum rate cards to begin with and just stick with fixed rate ones because at no time during the past several years was it any cheaper at all to have a variable rate card based on the National Averages.

It only makes sense the deciding differences would be perks that come included with most adjustable rate offers. It just seems obvious that it is a fact that credit card rewards are deserved for being charged too much interest in the first place.