Got a Providian Visa Gold Premier. Have had it for about 5 years now, before that I was upgraded from Classic to Gold to Gold Premier in a little over a year. Just called customer service to change my address (just closed on a house) and asked if they'd consider lowering my interest rate. I've got a great record there, haven't been late since I got the card, use the card very often, carry a balance, I'm their perfect cash cow customer! They basically said they automatically review their accounts on a regular basis and if an offer were available, I'd simply get it in the mail, or in other words, no. Asked about an upgrade to Platinum and got the same answer. Is this true? I've gotten CL increases of about 2k every six months for the past 5 years, so you can imagine how high my max limit is. But yet they won't budge on interest rate.
Heres my story.... I opened a Providian account (no grace period, 59 dollar annual fee and a 23.9 APR) way back in '99. In Feb. 03, asked to have account upgraded. In a runaround kind of way, was told no, but could lower the apr to 16.9, all other terms the same so I closed it. Come May '03. got an offer in the mail for Providian Plat and the terms are more to my liking (25-day grace period, no annual fee, initial cl of 6000 and a goto rate of 10.9). Heres the best part, in exchange for BT'ing 100 at 10.9%, I got 14 months 0% on purchases. Call me dumb, I like 0% on purchases, so I took it. Bottom line: You have to close your old account and wait to get solicited for the offer I mentioned. After the intro ends, you can dump 'em or call and ask for a lower rate and if they give you the same BS, dump 'em.
My experience with Providian is that if you want to get anything done, you have to use PFB. The people who answer the phone are not the brightest and are empowered to do absolutely nothing.
