Credit Card Applications

There has been a lot of discussion lately about credit cards and the upcoming holiday season. Traditionally, many shoppers will purchase for Christmas using only their credit cards and will pay them off over the course of the year. Bad plan? Well, not always. It is better to pay cash when you can, but its not always possible in this day and age. Retail stores even rely on consumers using their cards, a big part of the reason why sales associates all over are required to ask you to sign up. I work in a major retail store and we are daily reminded to ask every customer to apply. It gets old for the associates too, I promise no one looks forward to asking, "would you like to apply for a _____ credit card? You'll save ___ percent!"
The correct answer should usually be "No thank you." It shouldn't be "NO! Stop asking." It is the associate's job to ask. Jobs are not so easy to come by these days that anyone is going to risk losing one just because one customer has had a bad day. That just isn't practical. So from one sales person to anyone reading this, "Sorry, thats the breaks. Just let it go in one ear and out the other. Thank you for patronizing my store and for not having a fit over something I can't change."
It will be interesting to see how consumers react to the upcoming season following all of the financial woes of recent times. Hopefully, (for my job!) customers will pay attention to what they are spending while still using credit cards that are so important for store sales. Oh, and if you make a big purchase... go ahead, say "Yes, I would like to apply." And then be smart enough to pay it off as soon as possible. Financial difficulties do not have to mean there will be nothing under the christmas tree, it just means that it might be wrapped in newspaper instead of custom wrapping paper.