Just a few short years ago, there was a time when having excellent credit meant your credit card interest rate was low. Some people even selected cards based not only on miles, rewards, and cash back, but also on the very interest rate a card charged annually. My, how things have changed. Good credit still rocks, of course, but today, interest rates on credit cards are some of the highest they've been in the past quarter-century. The interest rate on your credit card varies by the card issuer, and the better your credit score, the lower the interest rate you're likely to receive. Well, within those historically high rates, of course. In 2009, Congress passed the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act, which in essence restricted card issuers from changing the terms, including the interest rate, on your card after you opened it. Hard to believe that was once allowed. Now that it's harder for card issuers to raise rates in response to economic downturns, they've raised the rates on new accounts across the board.