The Best Low-Interest Credit Card?

I was flipping through the August issue of SmartMoney magazine the other day and found something quite interesting and a little surprising.

The cover story featured the "World's Greatest Inventors." At first, I was a little surprised that someone like Thomas Edison or George Washington Carver wasn't on the cover. But then I noticed that the title was actually "World's Greatest Investors." All of a sudden, it made perfect sense that I was looking at photos of Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Bill Miller, etc.

The issue also featured an extensive review of brokerages (check out our own comparison chart of several solid brokerages -- several feature commissions below $8 per trade). HarrisDirect, a brokerage featured in our Broker Center, was rated No. 1 among discount brokerages. Kudos, HarrisDirect!

Then there was an article on teaching kids about money. I can't quibble with that. I believe in the urgency of that so much that I co-wrote The Motley Fool Investment Guide for Teens and assembled our free online content for teens.

OK, so are you ready for the surprise? It occurred on page 99, in an article titled, "The Best Credit Card for You." The article correctly affirmed that there's no perfect one-size-fits-all card, as different consumers have different needs. So it recommended the best card for those seeking cash back: Citigroup's (NYSE: C) Citi Dividend Platinum Select MasterCard. (Whew -- that's a mouthful!) And it recommended the best card for travel: Citi PremierPass MasterCard. And one for rewards: American Express' (NYSE: AXP) Preferred Rewards.

And the best card for those seeking low interest rates? Drum roll, please ... MBNA's (NYSE: KRB) Motley Fool Low Purchase APR Platinum Plus MasterCard! That's right -- you may or may not have realized that we offer spiffy credit cards (mine has jump-started many conversations when I whip it out), but you probably didn't realize that our cards are better than the average card. That's because we worked hard to negotiate the best packages we could for you.

SmartMoney said about our card: "For our money, the best bet is a solid, dependable, permanently low-interest card like the [Fool card]. It has no annual fee and a low, 6.9% fixed annual rate." It went on to warn readers, though, as I've done myself, that some card issuers are looking for reasons to hike rates significantly. So be careful out there.

Learn a lot more about picking the best card for your needs in our Credit Center, which offers many surprising peeks into the credit card industry. These articles may also be of interest:

• How to Owe $40,000 by Doing Nothing
• The Eight Commandments of Credit
• $24 Billion to Card Companies ... for What?
• Sneaky Credit Card Tactics
• Do You Want to Work Forever?
• Get Rich by Beating the Odds

Longtime Fool contributor Selena Maranjian does not own shares of any companies mentioned in this article.