What are the most important selection criteria for a credit card?

Here's an easy one for you: do you pick a credit card based on the color of the plastic, the design of the logo, or the credit terms, bank of issuance, and flexibility of payment options?

I'll bet that, like me, you answered the latter, not the former. That's why I just don't get why credit card companies send out mailings where they tout the designs, pretty pictures, customizable plastic or even color choices of the credit card as if it's some fashion accessory.

It's baffling. Given the rate of bankruptcies in this country and the number of people who are terribly overextended with credit due to simply having more credit cards than they can handle, aren't the banks and credit companies just compounding the problem by pretending that the only criteria that we need worry about is the color of the card?

I've said this before, but I just find it amazing that major credit issuers like Chase Manhattan and Citibank complain about the rate of default on credit card debt, help get the bankruptcy laws changed, and then send out mailings suggesting that choosing between a "lion" and a "panda" is really the only important issue surrounding your next credit card.

Think I'm joking?

Just this weekend I received a "Personal Invitation" for a credit card from Providian touting its 5 see-through colors. The picture on the mailing? Right, it's five pretty credit cards, red, green, blue, grey and aqua.

There's other information, of course, like the fact that it's a 0% APR until December 2006 (on balances transfered when I apply for the card, ensuring that I immediately start out in debt), up to a $30,000 credit line (allowing me to get even further in debt as fast as possible) and no annual fee.

Flip the pretty advert over, however, and you find out that the APR is actually 9.99% - 29.99%, that the APR on cash advances is 23.9% or prime rate + 17.74% (whichever is higher!), and that the average daily balance for fees is calculated based on two-cycles, not just one.

Maybe it's just me, but 29.99% sounds more like Lenny the Loanshark than Providian the Consumer's Friend Bank!

Anyway, what most bugs me about this is that not only does Providian think that pretty pictures sell a credit card, but that, darn it, they're probably right. How stupid are we consumers that these terrible terms are fine, as long as the card in our wallet is pretty and we can get a large credit line?