Best credit cards for 2016

With the U.S. economy picking up steam, credit card companies are again wooing consumers with free balance transfers, low-and no-interest charges for months on end, and generous rewards.

2016 is going to be a fantastic year for consumers," said Kevin Yuann, director of credit cards at rate-shopping site NerdWallet. "Competition between issuers has increased incredibly, and that's going to mean better rates and better rewards for card holders."

Good offers are becoming available to a growing range of consumers, said Jill Gonzalez, spokeswoman for CardHub, another rate-shopping service. The site's latest credit landscape report found that where the best deals were previously reserved for people with perfect credit, consumers with merely good and average credit are now being presented with increasingly attractive offers.

The one caveat is that consumers need to dig more deeply into the terms and conditions of their credit card agreements before they apply, said Bill Hardekopf, chief executive of LowCards.com. All too often, consumers overlook balance transfer fees and the circumstances under which their no-interest deal could be taken away.

The balance transfer fee can eat up everything you are going to save in interest," he said. "That fee often gets rolled into your balance, too, so you even pay interest on the fee."