by Joseph Kenny | 07/13/09

Credit card fees seem to come from nowhere, but they sure can pack quite a punch. With the high prices of common items these days, you do not need to be accidentally paying more for unforeseen credit card fees. You want to avoid them at all costs.

Late Fees

Avoiding late fees seems like simple business but with how busy life can get, you can forget to pay on time. Late fees, depending on your card, can be significant and that's not all. You may also be facing penalty interest rates. You have to find a way to make sure that you are never late with your credit card payments again.

One sure way to avoid late fees is to start paying your credit card bills online. You can even go so far as to choose the option of automated payments. You can set up payments a long time in advance to that the proper amount will be paid, and it will always be on time.

Even if you do not set up the payments ahead of time, you can make the payments online with the click of a button and do so shortly before the actual due date. Just make sure you know how long it takes for payments to be processed so you know that you will not be late anyway. Some companies do not count payments made after a certain time of day until the next day. You need to know this to avoid late fees.

Be Careful When You Transfer

Sometimes transferring your balance seems like the answer to all your problems. With offers for low or zero interest rate cards, you would have to be a fool not to take advantage of these offers. As always, there is more to the story.

You get charged a fee when you transfer a balance. At one time, this fee had a cap on how much it could be. The amount was usually around $75.

These days, however, the limits have been lifted by many companies and you could be paying much more than that to transfer your current high balance to this new card. Instead of being a predetermined number, these fees can now be determined by percentages. Instead of paying a maximum of $75 you will end up paying a percentage of the total amount that you transfer. You will have to pay more if you intend to transfer more.

A 3% fee is not much is you are transferring $100 but if you plan to transfer $1000 or more, and high balances are why you are looking for a new card anyway, then your fee could keep growing. The way to avoid this is to pay close attention to your credit card agreement. It may disclose a minimum fee but no maximum fee.

This is a warning sign. Find out exactly how much your transfer fee is going to amount to before you transfer anything, or you could be adding to your debt instead of working to eliminate it.

Protecting yourself from basic credit card fees is one place where you can save yourself a lot of money. These fees are easy to accumulate without realizing it, and odds are you don't have the money to spare. Figure out the best way for you to avoid late fees, and be very careful when you transfer your balance from one credit card to another.