Check your credit card agreement, if you see the words “universal default,” look out. Universal default clauses are those clauses built into your agreement where that credit card company can increase your interest rate if you are late on any payment to any other lender. Generally, “late” means you’re more than 30 days late (most credit card companies won’t report anything if you’re less than 30 days late because it’s not worth it) but miss one and now all of your credit cards will gang up on you and increase those rates. A recent Bankrate survey showed that “39 percent of credit card issuers said they apply the rule to customers, even if they had no late payments on their own card.”

Unfortunately, the universal default clause is ironclad and usually indisputable so you’ll just have to be careful not to miss your payments or they can get you. The best strategy to combat this (besides not carrying a balance if you can avoid it) is to review your credit card agreements and only put balances on those cards that don’t have a universal default clause.

Source: Bankrate