Don’t shed a tear for credit card companies. No matter what the headlines say about their parent entities, they’re mostly doing just fine…and eager to earn your business.

If you’re one of those highly empathetic people who tend to cry at sad movies (and, if you are, you really need to stock up on handkerchiefs before you see War Horse) then you may have been shedding tears for some of your favorite credit card companies. If so, you can dry your eyes. The parent companies of Chase and Citi may have published less than impressive fourth-quarter results recently, but it’s not their card divisions that are causing the problems. They’re doing just fine.

Credit card companies flourishing

Take the Chase card division as an example. According to a Jan. 13 press release from JP Morgan Chase, it issued new credit cards to 8.5 million people in 2011. Meanwhile, its charge-offs (when uncollectible debt is written off the books, and passed on to collection agencies and the like) were just 3.27 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, down from 5.73 percent in 2010, and its delinquency rate (when customers are 30 days or more behind with payments) was 2.32 percent compared with 3.23 percent the previous year.

Those may be pretty good figures, but they don’t mean that executives at Chase and elsewhere have room for complacency. By some measures, business is down. However, look on the bright side: it’s card issuers’ responses to the troubling aspects of their results that are creating some good news for consumers like you.

Credit card interest rates down, offers up

In particular, card issuers would love their customers to get back into the habit of carrying forward balances. That may explain at least in part why credit card interest rates have begun edging down. At the time of writing, IndexCreditCards.com’s rate monitor puts the average for all sorts of cards at 16.65 percent, which is still high, but a little lower than it has been recently.

At the same time, many card issuers are mailing out many more credit card offers than they have in recent years. Chase says its non-interest expenses shot up by 8 percent ($158 million) from the previous year in the division that manages cards, and attributed much of that to increased marketing costs.

Rewards credit cards boost cash back bonuses

It’s not just in terms of the number of solicitations mailed that card issuers are making big efforts. The quality of each credit card offer is also tending to improve.

In particular, the number of enhancements to rewards credit cards‘ programs in recent months has been remarkable, as the most casual trawl through the IndexCreditCards.com news blog would reveal. At the same time, sign-up bonuses, which provide a one-off cash gift for new cardholders, are also in evidence. The Chase Freedom Visa Card and the Citi Dividend Platinum Select Visa Card are two current examples, both offering $200 cash back after first use of the card.

If you have good credit, you’re in the enviable position of being in the target market for credit card companies that are very keen to have your business. So now’s the time to dry your eyes, and seek out the best deals you possibly can.

In the run-up to the 2011 holidays, many credit card companies ran special promotions and/or enhanced their rewards programs. That was understandable. Card issuers are strenuously competing both to attract new customers and to encourage existing ones to use their plastic as much as possible, and the holiday season must be their biggest opportunity to do those things.

So you might have expected the flow of promotions and enhancements to dry up at the start of the new year. But you’d have been wrong. Just days ago, the IndexCreditCards.com news blog reported a Citi initiative that allows its customers to pool rewards points using Facebook. Today, it’s a Chase announcement that we’re covering.

Rewards credit cards from Chase get better

On Jan. 5, Chase unveiled its new partnership with Southwest Airlines, which is the nation’s biggest carrier when judged by the number of originating domestic passengers boarded. This allows holders of three of its rewards credit cards to transfer points from the Chase Ultimate Rewards website to the Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards program. There are no caps on the number of points you can transfer, and each Chase point is worth one Rapid Rewards point, so the value of rewards is maintained.

The three rewards credit cards affected by the announcement are Chase Sapphire Preferred, Ink Plus and Ink Bold. In a press release, Chase identified a number of benefits offered by Southwest, including these four:

1. 3,400 daily flights connecting 72 cities in 37 states (73 cities in 38 states starting next month)
2. Flexible fares
3. First or second checked bag free, subject to weight and size
4. In-flight wi-fi

Meanwhile, Chase says that its Ultimate Rewards program features:

• No earnings caps
• No blackout dates
• No expiration on points earned

Small business credit cards

The Chase Ink brand comprises a range of small business credit cards. The two products involved in this new partnership (Ink Plus and Ink Bold) provide 20 percent off travel costs, but only when redeemed on Ultimate Rewards. The discount applies to bookings for airfares, hotels, car rentals and cruises. Holders can also enjoy airport lounge access.

Chase Sapphire Preferred is a consumer credit card, and holders can earn two points for each dollar they spend on travel and dining. One particularly attractive feature for those who regularly spend time overseas: the card charges no foreign transaction fees.

On Jan. 3, Citi unveiled a new program, the first of its kind, that’s designed to allow those with the bank’s rewards credit cards to pool their points through Facebook. The innovation allows groups of Facebook friends to agree a goal, and then contribute Citi ThankYou rewards points that can be redeemed to achieve it.

Rewards credit cards making a difference

The most obvious use for this is probably charitable giving. You can imagine like-minded friends choosing to support their favorite causes, both over a period, and during times of domestic or foreign disaster.

However, Citi says that it offers “millions” of rewards, including travel and electronics. So you could see a band of your pals using the app for organizing a vacation or weekend break together, buying a wedding, graduation, retirement or anniversary gift for a mutual friend or relation, or just getting something you all could use together. You can show what they’d like to receive on their personal ThankYou Wishlist, which could be really useful for wedding, Christmas and birthday gifts.

To celebrate the launch of its innovation, Citi is giving away up to 10 million rewards points between now and 11:59 p.m. on Feb. 3, 2012. If you’re one of the first 4,000 ThankYou members to link the app to your personal Facebook page, you stand to receive 2,500 bonus points.

The mechanics

In order to participate, you must have an eligible Citibank checking account or one of the bank’s rewards credit cards. These include the Citi ThankYou(SM) Preferred Card, the Citi Forward® Card and the Citi ThankYou(SM) Premier Card. If you have another Citi-branded card, check to see if it’s eligible. You must also have enrolled with the ThankYou Rewards program, which you can do at the ThankYou.com website.

Next, visit the Citibank Facebook page, and click on the “TY Point Sharing” tab, toward the top-left. Follow the on-screen instructions to link the app to your page. You’ll need to enter your ThankYou user name and password during this process. You’re then set to:

1. Start a pool of points and establish a goal.
2. Invite as many or as few of your Facebook friends as you like to contribute points.
3. Track how contributions are going.
4. Contribute to others’ pools.

Credit card companies and social networking

Ralph Andretta, head of co brands and loyalty at Citi Cards, commented in a press release:

Citi is constantly listening to our clients as part of our commitment to deliver rewarding experiences that fit into their increasingly digital world. This new app is a first in the marketplace and a fun, flexible way to share ThankYou points – as well as rewarding experiences – with friends and family.

Many credit card companies are currently exploring ways to build customer loyalty and satisfaction through the use of social media. So far, this initiative is one of the most creative, but you can expect many more over the coming months and years. In the meantime, why not see if you can get those 2,500 bonus points?

The good folks of Basking Ridge, N.J., must have been choking on the stench of burning rubber last week. The source of the noxious fumes? The headquarters of Verizon Wireless within which had been performed one of the most spectacular U-turns in recent commercial history. On Dec. 30, just days after announcing its plans to institute a $2 convenience fee on online or telephone single payments using debit and credit cards, Dan Mead, the company’s president and chief executive officer, issued a statement:

At Verizon, we take great care to listen to our customers. Based on their input, we believe the best path forward is to encourage customers to take advantage of the best and most efficient options, eliminating the need to institute the fee at this time.

Credit cards and convenience fees

The idea of charging convenience fees for debit and credit card use isn’t entirely new. There’s a good chance you already do so if you use plastic to pay your power bills or for some government services. And back in June 2011, the IndexCreditCards.com news blog reported that UCLA had started charging a 2.75 percent fee to those students who choose to pay their tuition and fees, housing costs, parking permits and so on using certain credit cards.

None of this is good news for credit card companies, which are anxious to encourage people to use their plastic on as many occasions as possible. That’s so they maximize their revenues from the “interchange” fees (the cut of the transaction value) that they receive every time a card is swiped.

Indeed, both MasterCard and Visa ban the levying of supplementary charges (sometimes called “checkout fees”) for card use in their general merchant agreements, and encourage customers to report retailers and others who try to tack them on. What isn’t banned is offering a discount to those who pay by cash, check or PIN debit card. According to Visa’s website:

Retailers can encourage their customers to use other forms of payment, such as cash and checks, and can discount for PIN debit and cash and checks provided that the offer is made to all respective buyers.

Visa also reminds customers that it’s illegal to charge checkout fees for credit card use in most circumstances in 10 states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Credit cards remain a good way to pay

Given half a chance, many merchants would probably love to cover the cost of processing credit card transactions by levying checkout fees. But it’s unlikely that many CEOs are going to set themselves up for a repeat performance of Dan Mead’s climbdown any time soon. So maybe Verizon has done cardholders (and credit card companies) a favor by deterring others who might otherwise have been similarly tempted to challenge the status quo.

It now looks close to certain: the 2011 holiday season was the time when many Americans once again fell in love with their credit cards, at least according to a Dec. 27 report in The Washington Post.

Credit card use “surges”

The Post’s piece cited support from two sources for its contention. First is — appropriately enough — First Data, a research company that tracks how consumers make payments. It found that, compared with the same period in 2010, credit card purchases increased by 7 percent in November, and then “surged” again in the first part of December. And it went on to quote Ed Ferrell, director of the Consumer Reports national research center:

If past behavior is any predictor, the closer you get to Dec. 25 the more likely you’re running into that store and buying whatever you can. Plastic really starts flying more.

The second source was an earlier study by Consumer Reports itself. This found that, although the number of consumers who said they were planning to use credit cards over the holiday season remained steady compared with last year, the amount they intended to charge to those cards had increased by 6 percent. On average, respondents thought they’d add $756 to their card balances this year.

Credit card debt remains an unknown

Of course, a large proportion of those using plastic are likely to pay down their balances in full when their next monthly statement falls due. But some won’t, and it’s the number of those that credit card companies and other industry observers will be watching carefully.

Stand by for close scrutiny of data from many private and public bodies as they report over the coming weeks, and especially of the Federal Reserve’s figures for total credit card debt, which are due to be released in early January for November’s balances, and early February for December’s.

Credit card debt and consumer confidence

Two questions many people are likely to ask themselves when they come to decide how much they should reduce their holiday card balances are:

1. How secure do I feel in my job?
2. How confident am I in my financial prospects?

The answers to both these may be more cheerful now than they have been recently. Everyone knows that the unemployment rate has at last begun to fall, and the optimism that comes with this was reflected in The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index, which was published Dec. 27. Lynn Franco, director of the Board’s consumer research center, observed in a statement that day:

Looking ahead, consumers are more optimistic that business conditions, employment prospects, and their financial situations will continue to get better. While consumers are ending the year in a somewhat more upbeat mood, it is too soon to tell if this is a rebound from earlier declines or a sustainable shift in attitudes.

Credit card interest rates a factor

People who are considering carrying forward balances for the first time since the credit crunch should bear in mind one factor beyond their immediate prospects: the credit card interest rates they pay may be higher than they used to be. Right now, the IndexCreditCards.com rate monitor puts the average for all cards at 16.71 percent, while those for rewards credit cards average 17.58 percent.

It’s that higher rate that lies behind a piece of advice that’s oft-repeated here: charge to rewards credit cards only those purchases that you can clear at the end of the current billing cycle. Everything else should go on low interest credit cards.

“How much interest will I pay?”

Of course, even relatively high rates are unlikely to prove a serious problem for those thinking of paying down their holiday spending over two or three months. But anyone planning to carry credit card debt over the long term should probably take the costs of doing so seriously. So, if you’re in that position, why not check out this site’s credit card calculators, which can answer a range of questions, including “How much interest will I pay?“

With most of it over, we can now look back over the 2011 holidays, and ask: Was it worth it? Of course, spending time with family and friends is priceless, but the season as a whole comes with a big price, not least, for many, paying for it afterwards. Two November surveys revealed just how stressful the financial aspects of the season are to many Americans.

Credit cards taking the strain…

USAA’s third annual holiday spending survey found that 48 percent of respondents were going to use their credit cards to buy holiday gifts (up from 42 percent in 2010), but surprisingly few consumers planned to clear their credit card debt immediately. As the organization’s press release put it, “Older is wiser when it comes to credit card management.” The percentage of respondents who intended to fully pay down their balances as soon as possible were:

• 55-64 year olds: 41 percent
• 45-54 year olds: 37 percent
• 35-44 year olds: 34 percent
• 18-34 year olds: 27 percent

Yep, nearly three in four young people said they were going to roll forward their card balances. USAA’s June Walbert, who’s a Certified Financial Planner, took a dim view of that. Speaking about all card users, she said in a statement:

Credit cards have many benefits, including general convenience, the ability to reap rewards, and fraud protection. However, financially responsible shoppers must remember to pay off the balance each month to avoid paying interest fees.

… or contributing to the stress?

The other November poll was conducted by CBS News. Over one-third of this survey’s respondents said that contemplating their holiday spending made them more stressed in 2011 than in previous years. That’s no surprise when you hear that 66 percent of those with household incomes under $50K a year were either somewhat or very concerned about not being able to afford the gifts they wanted to buy. Add in those with higher incomes, and you still find half of respondents with these concerns. A whopping 80 percent said they only had just enough or not enough money to buy the gifts they wanted.

Many of the 33 percent who didn’t have enough (more than half of the under-$50K category) may have taken on credit card debt to cover their shortfalls. However, that’s not always a wise move. In October, Consumer Reports found that 14.1 million Americans were then — 10 months after the festivities had ended — still paying back card debt they took on to cover holiday expenses in 2010.

Yet another poll was published just before Christmas by an organization called FreeScore.com. It’s hard to know how seriously to take its results because the press release that reported it failed to include any details of the survey’s sample size or methodology. But, for what it’s worth, it found:

1. The average consumer spends four hours each day worrying about or thinking about debt.
2. As many as 11 percent spend a (to this blogger, literally) incredible 10 hours a day worrying or thinking about debt.

The press release did include one indisputable fact. If you are stressed out about credit card debt (or any other sort), get advice. A good starting point is the National Foundation for Credit Counseling.

Prepaid credit cards are clearly on the upswing. According to a U.S. senator’s website, Mercator Advisory Group  reckons that the amount of money loaded onto “open loop” prepaid cards that you can use wherever American Express, MasterCard and Visa are accepted (depending on the card) is going to increase to $233.8 billion in 2012 from $60.4 billion in 2009 — nearly a fourfold increase over three years. That’s a lot of dough.

And you can see why prepaid credit cards are so popular. Anyone with a little upfront cash can get approved for one, so they’re ideal for youngsters and those with badly damaged credit. And they can be a great way to avoid credit card debt or overdrafts: you can only spend your own money. Once the cash you’ve preloaded runs out, the card stops working.

Prepaid credit card pitfalls

If only that were the whole story, it would be easy to endorse prepaid cards as a panacea for so many ills. But it isn’t. On Dec. 19, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) highlighted a number of issues:

1. If your prepaid card is lost or stolen, you may stand to lose the balance that remained on it.
2. If your card issuer goes bankrupt, you could similarly lose that balance.
3. Many cards come with horrifically high hidden fees.

As Menendez notes on his Senate website:

This season, its [sic] hidden fees that are making for a Blue Christmas. Unsuspecting consumers are finding out the hard way that prepaid cards often give you much less than the dollar amount you load onto them thanks to unnecessary fees. We need to ensure that families who rely on prepaid cards are not surprised by hidden charges.

To counter these issues, Sen. Menendez is proposing the Prepaid Card Consumer Protection Act, which would require:

1. Comprehensive disclosure of all fees before the card is purchased
2. Limits on the fees that can be levied
3. Protections if a card is lost or stolen
4. FDIC cover, so money wouldn’t be lost if an issuer goes bankrupt

With luck, such regulation could prevent repeats of a story told by The New York Times a couple of years ago: When Floridian Damon Saxton tried to access money from his prepaid card using an ATM he accidentally hit the wrong keys while he was entering his PIN. His card issuer charged him $2.95 “for a declined ATM transaction.” So he called the customer service center to complain. His pleas fell on deaf ears, but he was charged a further $1.95 for the privilege of calling.

Secured credit cards have advantages over prepaid

If your credit history is too damaged to qualify for an unsecured credit card, then a secured credit card may be a better option for you than a prepaid card. These provide many of the statutory and other protections that mainstream credit cards offer. IndexCreditCards.com recently published an article “Best and worst secured credit cards for 2012″ which teases out some of the differences between these cards.

It’s a busy time of year, so here in a very quick read is a news digest comprising four stories that haven’t been covered in the main IndexCreditCards.com news blog.

Credit card giving boosted by Capital One

‘Tis the season for charitable giving, so first up is Capital One, which recently reminded its customers of its donations website, www.capitalone.com/give. Generally, credit card companies deduct interchange fees from charitable donations, which means that up to 5 percent of any gift made using plastic goes into issuers’ coffers. But for those using this site, Capital One waives its fees, and 100 percent of your donation reaches the good cause of your choice.

You can search the site’s 1.2 million-strong database for the charity of your choice by name, type of cause or zip code, and you can also redeem points from Capital One rewards cards to make your donation. As Katya Andresen, the chief strategy officer at Network for Good, remarked in a press release:

While offline giving has declined through the economic downturn, online giving is on the rise and people are looking for easy, convenient and cost-effective ways to be generous. The Giving Site is a great tool for consumers and we are thrilled that Capital One is getting extra money to charities at a time when every penny counts.

Too busy to shop? American Express takes it on for you

If you’re lucky enough to have an American Express Platinum Card, your holiday shopping just got a whole lot easier. That’s because the concierge service that comes with that particular card is offering to do all the legwork for you.

All you have to do is send a list of the gifts you require, and the concierge team will research your options, find you the best price, buy what you want on your card, and then make sure the items are delivered in time for Christmas.

Store credit cards in decline

The amount people spent on “private-label” (store and similarly branded) credit cards plummeted by 14.4 percent to $183 billion in 2010, according to a study conducted by Packaged Facts and reported in Marketing Daily on Nov. 30.

Meanwhile the “receivables” (the total credit card debt outstanding) on private-label plastic fell even further, down 18 percent during last year. Much of this may be down to credit card companies “charging off” debt (writing it off their books and passing it on to collection agencies), though the dollar volume spent on this sort of card was also down.

This may well be a good thing. Although private-label plastic often comes with tempting discounts and exclusive offers, mainstream credit card interest rates tend to be lower than those for store cards, and the latter are frequently an expensive form of credit card debt.

It’s generally better to use low interest credit cards — rather than store cards or rewards credit cards — for purchases that you won’t be paying down quickly.

Record-breaking online holiday shopping

ComScore, a research company specializing in the digital world, is tracking online holiday spending. And 2011 is proving to be a bumper year. Between Nov. 1 and Dec. 4, online spending reached $19.57 billion, 15 percent up on the same period in 2010. On Cyber Monday (Nov. 28) alone, it reached over $1.25 billion, 22 percent more than that day last year.

This is almost certainly good news for credit card companies. More and more people are recognizing the superior statutory protections offered to consumers by credit cards — as opposed to debit, gift and prepaid cards — and these can be especially valuable online. So the more people shop on the web, the more the turnover of card issuers is likely to rise.

When the big-six credit card companies published their November figures earlier this month, things were looking good. According to a Dec. 15 report from Moody’s Investors Services, rates for late payments and defaults had recovered from their recession and post-recession highs and were back to normal.

Credit card debt less of a problem

In its coverage of the data, The Washington Post quoted Jeff Hibbs, an analyst with Moody’s, who predicted that the default rate could drop still further: to under 4 percent from November’s annualized level of 5.2 percent. When you remember that it peaked just 18 months ago at 10.44 percent, that’s a pretty amazing decline.

Of course, much of that fall is almost certainly down to many Americans taking a more responsible attitude to their finances and actively paying down their credit card debt. However, the Post points to two other factors:

• About $75 billion in credit card debt has been “charged off” (written off credit card companies’ books and passed to collection agencies) since the start of the recession, according to Moody’s.
• TransUnion says that over 8 million consumers dropped out of the card market between when the recession began and the end of 2010. Presumably, some of these voluntarily cut up their own cards, while others saw their accounts closed unilaterally by their credit card companies.

Whatever the causes, few would be other than very happy that card debt today is less of a problem for millions of American families than it has been recently.

Credit card offers set to rise?

Credit card executives are as cheered by this news as the rest of us. Their balance sheets have for years been burdened by charge-offs and provisions to cover future charge-offs, and now that they’re largely free of those it’s like a return to the good old days of high profits. Just last week, for example, Discover Financial Services announced that it would increase its dividend to 10 cents from 6 cents, a jump of 67 percent, according to The Chicago Sun-Times.

And, as those executives bellow out their “Happy days are here again” refrain, they’re looking for ways to make the good times even better, both by taking market share from each other, and by growing the overall market by welcoming back into the credit card fold at least some of those whose poor credit scores had previously excluded them.

As was reported in the IndexCreditCards.com news blog a few weeks ago (Credit card debt nightmare to return?): “…between July and September of this year, more than a quarter (25.2 percent) of all new cards issued went to subprime borrowers,” according to data from TransUnion. The Washington Post expects more of the same, remarking: “…potential customers with moderate credit scores should find cards easier to obtain in the coming year.”

True, there’s as yet little sign that card issuers are returning to their pre-credit crunch habit of seemingly mailing plastic to consumers on the basis of a single lending criterion: the ability to mist a mirror. However, the ever-increasing volume of credit card offers being sent to an ever-widening pool of consumers may be reason for concern.

It feels so good to know that for many consumers credit card debt is no longer a major issue. Let’s at least pause to enjoy the novel sensation before re-creating the circumstances that led to problems in the first place.

After several years of declining use, credit cards are poised for resurgence. Despite the nation’s very rocky economic recovery, consumers appear to have halted their belt-tightening and bank incentives to use credit cards rather than debit are gaining appeal.

- Beth Robertson, Director of Payments Research, Javelin Strategy & Research, Nov. 28, 2011

Credit card use set to explode

The press release from which that quote was taken includes some other interesting predictions. Javelin Strategy & Research forecasts that credit card use for online purchases is going to grow by 63 percent over the five years from 2011 to 2016. The same figure over the same period for debit cards is just 2 percent. “Alternative” online payment methods, such as prepaid cards and gift cards are expected to rise, but even by 2016 they’re set to account for only 19 percent of all online purchases. By that time, Javelin expects, debit cards will account for 21 percent.

It’s not just online that credit cards are coming back into their own. On Dec. 5, First Data Advisors recalled that it had first noted a change in credit card trends back in February, and since August had seen year-over-year growth in credit card spending outstripping that for both signature and PIN debit card transactions. During Thanksgiving Thursday and Black Friday this year, the value of all credit card transactions was more than 10 percent higher than over the same two days in 2010.

Rewards credit cards and credit card offers

So why the turnaround? It would be nice to think that it was because consumers had read “7 ways in which credit cards beat debit cards,” an article that appeared on IndexCreditCards.com just about a year ago. But the real reasons are probably different. Since the Durbin Amendment reduced the cut that banks receive of each debit card transaction (but left that for credit cards at the same level) there’s been a strong reason for financial institutions to push consumers towards credit card use. And that’s most obviously revealed itself in two ways:

1. On Dec. 5, CNNMoney quoted data from Mintel Compermedia that suggested that 1.3 billion credit card offers were mailed to consumers during the third quarter of 2011. That’s an 85-percent increase over the level at the start of 2010.
2. Rewards credit cards are now a lot more generous, by and large, than they were a year or two ago. Credit card companies see these as key ways both to build market share and to drive up their customers’ use of their products.

Credit card debt not yet a problem

Javelin’s study tossed up one troubling statistic. People using debit cards for single online purchases on average spend $58.29 on each transaction. However, those using credit cards in the same circumstances spend $82.10. Now, there could be a number of explanations for this, but one may be that consumers are tempted to spend more when buying on credit.

So how scared should we be by the prospect of Americans getting carried away with their card spending, and loosening their belts too much? Well, not too scared, at least according to research published Dec. 7 by TransUnion, one of the big-three credit bureaus. In a press release, Steve Chaouki, group vice president in the company’s financial services business unit, remarked:

Credit card delinquencies are expected to remain fairly steady in 2012 ranging between 0.69 percent and 0.76 percent — levels far below those typically observed in the last 15 years. In today’s uncertain economy, consumers have found that credit cards are among their most valued assets due to the flexibility they provide. As a result, consumers have made a concerted effort to make on-time payments and maintain relatively low balances. In fact, credit card debt per borrower in the third quarter of 2011 stood at $4,762, approximately $1,000 less than the second quarter of 2009, the quarter in which the recession ended.

So maybe we can relax a little. But the specter of credit card debt still haunts many of us, so if you choose to use your plastic, you may want to do so with prudence.