What Are Pre-Approved Credit Cards?

If you have a mail box, you probably get a few pre-approved credit card offers every month. Banks spend billions of dollars on these mailings, using data from the credit bureaus to pre-select and pre-qualify potential clients for one of the many credit cards in their lineups.

But just because you're pre-approved doesn't mean you'll sail through the application process, and a pre-approved card may not be the best choice for you. Here's how to decide which cards are really worth applying for.

Getting pre-approved for a credit card means that, based on a limited amount of information, the card company believes you're more likely than average to get approved for a particular card.

Source: Fool.com