The time has come to ditch the old debit card and add a new rewards credit card to your wallet, but how can you be certain you'll get approved for the card you want? Is it even worth your time to fill out the application? I get these questions quite often from readers, and the answer is a simple one. There's absolutely no way to know. However, you can certainly improve your chances of getting a big thumbs up from the credit card company by making sure you know where your FICO credit scores stand before completing a card application. Once you pull your FICO scores and determine where you fall in the bad, fair, good or excellent credit range, you can then make a better decision regarding which credit card offers would be the best fit for your credit profile. Unfortunately, you're not entitled to free FICO scores each year like you are free credit reports, so you may have to settle for an estimate from a site like as CreditKarma if you're not willing to shell out cash for your scores.

If you’re anything like me, your stomach drops when you receive any form of communication from the IRS. That’s because if they’re sending you something in the mail, it's most often because you owe some clams to Uncle Sam. Inevitably, the government finds ways in which to squeeze revenues from as many angles as possible, especially with today’s trimmed public budgets and high government debt. In fact, credit card holders have often been the recipients of such attempts at increasing the public coffers.