A month or more before applying for a new credit card, you should try to increase your credit score to get a
better
credit card deal.
There are two steps in this process.
Step one: use money you saved to pay off part of your
credit card debt.
You should try to get your
balances to below 30% of available credit line on EACH account.
Step two: try to reduce the number of credit cards
with balances: pay off credit cards with small balances completely (but don't cancel them!).
This should boost your credit score and in about a month you should be able to get a better credit card or loan than
you would otherwise.
Check your credit score before attempting this to make sure it's not bad. You could get a free credit report ones a year
from EACH of three major credit agencies
here.
Updated: 4/27/2012