Help! We’re In A Dysfunctional Relationship With Our Credit Cards

We may need Dr. Phil to sort this out.

The banks where we’ve been loyal, dependable customers treat us badly — cutting credit limits, raising fees and patronizing us with second-rate deals.

Yet banks we’ve shunned for years refuse to take “no” for an answer. They won’t stop filling the Bankaholic mailbox with offers that promise a more fulfilling and rewarding financial marriage.

Here’s what we’ve pulled out the past couple of weeks.

A stark, black-and-white, three-page letter from Bank of America says it’s raising the transaction fee for cash advances and balance transfers on our card from 3% to 4%. It’s also expanding its 3% fee on foreign transactions to include purchases made in dollars, not just foreign currencies.

Our Citigroup card is still soliciting balance transfers. But the deal — 2.99% APR until Oct. 1 and a 3% transfer balance fee — is not that great. What happened to no interest for a full year?

See why we’re not feeling the love here?

But JPMorgan Chase is practically begging us to sign-up for its “Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Signature Visa” card. By using the card just once, and transferring a balance from another card, we can get 16 bonus credits — or enough for a free roundtrip ticket.

A mailing from Capital One will give us 30,000 bonus miles, which is also enough for a round-trip ticket to most places in the United States, if we’ll just put its “No Hassle Miles Ultra MasterCard Professional’ credit card in our wallet.

Which is the best deal?

The fine print leaves little doubt.

The No Hassle Miles card offers a 0% interest rate through February and an adjustable rate of 9.99% (prime plus 6.74%) after that. There is no cash advance fee, transfer fee, late payment fee or over-the-credit-limit fee.

We can’t find any mention of interest rates or what Chase charges for any of those fees in its letter.

Chase touts its card for charging “a lower annual fee than many other airline cards.” The fine print says it’s $59 a year unless Chase decides you don’t qualify for a high-end Signature Visa card and bumps you down to a Classic Visa. In that case the annual fee is $39.

Capital One charges no annual fee.

We’re left with the impression that the Chase Southwest Airlines Rewards Card would be expensive and full of surprises — all of them bad.

Capital One reinforces our opinion that its “No Hassle Miles” cards offer the best deals around.