But, don’t worry. All you need is to be prepared to typical traps and understand what needs special attention.

First of all get into the habit of reading not only the fine print as well but also small and ugly fonts. This will open you real source of info about any type of hidden fees or other additional costs that can be associated with the card.

When comparing offers also make sure to check the APR and the fees. The APR is your key to the interest rate. Surely, when talking about APR, you need the lowest APR possible. Credit cards with high APR rates turn into a big problem, because they are leading you to the credit card debt.

If we talk about three credit card giants – Visa, MasterCard, and American Express – they have their own peculiarities. For example, Visa and MasterCard, don’t issue the cards themselves, because banks and other companies issue cards on their behalf. American Express (also known as AMEX) is doing everything inside the house: issues credit cards, maintains networks, etc.

However travelers will most likely vote for either Visa or MasterCard, because they are accepted globally. American Express is the least accepted of the three.

One more thing to consider about credit cards is the security issue. Credit card fraud is really sophisticated these days: they catch up with the latest technologies and know how to use them properly. One of the security features that is becoming very popular is the "switched off by default." Before you send a special security SMS to the company to unblock your card for a while – your card is nothing but a piece of plastic. Even if credit card thieves can steal the card and its PIN, still there is nothing they can do with the card. Only after the card is unblocked by special SMS it can do something.

By the way, make sure that you need a credit card, because today there are full featured debit cards that have the same freedom of payments as credit cards (like accepted in PoS, cash withdrawal in ATMs, etc.)