What is the best credit card deal for a student?

I'm a student and have never had a credit card but I'm looking to build up some credit just for good measure as I know a good credit score will help me out in the future. I know nothing about credit cards so I was just wondering what is the best deal out there or how to find the best deal for me? What exactly should I be looking for and what should I definitely stay away from? Any little bit will help.|||Overall, you'll be best off without credit cards. But if you feel that you must, well, get a department store (JC Penny's or Target) card with a low balance.





The deal with the credit cards is that the companies convince you that you have to have them. And then they charge crazy fees when you do have them, and then $35 if you're one day late with your payment, and all sorts of other crazy things. And speaking as a small business owner who had a credit card machine (I let my customers pay with VISA and Mastercard), it adds an extra 4% of expense to everything. Which means, that on top of the credit fees they charge you every month, you have to pay an extra 4% more just so the shop owner can pay the extra expense. And to top it off, the credit card companies tell the retailers that they can't tell the customers how much extra it costs, and they can't charge extra fees to pay for the extra expense of the credit card machines.





Anyway . . .





The less you have to do with credit cards, the better. One good way to limit your number of credit cards is to read through ALL of the legal agreements they have you sign. Yeah, hardly anyone does it, but there's some horrific stuff in those agreements that will definitely make you think twice about signing.





Caveat emptor.|||The best credit card for a student is the one you already have, none. My advise is to completely stay away from credit until you graduate and get a high paying job.





However, if you really want to build some credit and don't mind doing it hard and responsible way, get a secured credit card with your local bank. First save up $1,000. Then go to your local bank a fill out a secured credit card application. You'll deposit the $1,000 into an account, and that will be your credit limit.





It will report to the credit bureaus, just like a normal credit card would, but you'll have no risk of being in debt.|||These are the main things I looked for: annual fees? credit limit? source type (visa, mastercard, discover, american express)? bank you are getting the card from? the Introductory APR? Card rewards?





I got a CitiBank Visa with a $4000 limit with a 6mo 0% APR... which means the stuff that I buy will not accrue interest for those 6 months, if I carry a balance from one statement to the other. And at the moment there are no annual service fees for being a card holder. I also get what they call "thank you points" so many points gets you gift cards of all different kinds... you can also get credits on your account or general visa gift cards where you can use anywhere like a debit card, but it has a limit... whatever your thank you points added up to.





I also got a discover card from discover itself with a $500 limit and with a 15 mo 0% APR. They have no annual fees for this card and I get what they call cash back or bonuses.... for these next three months any gas or hotel charges (and a few other general charges) I get 5% back on anything that are in those categories... (I'm not completely sure how this reward program works, because I just received the card not too long ago and have not used it)





You will want to continually check your credit report (at least once a year) to make sure that everything is being reported correctly... you can get those for free through creditreport.com and you can also get an overview of your credit report through creditkarma.com (this site gives you an estimated credit score, where the free credit reports only tell you want is on your report and NOT a score... not even an estimate) The estimated score from creditkarma was about 20 pts lower than my actual scores, but whatever....





Your credit score will also be better if your balance that is reported is low compared to the amount of credit line you have.... like try to keep the balance less than 50% of the card limit... some even say no more than 30% of the card should be utilized (meaning how much money is on it)





hope this helps...