It doesn't hurt to ask, especially if it's your credit card company. Requests can save you hundreds of dollars a year. More than 8 in 10 people who have asked their card issuers to drop annual fees, waive late charges and reduce their interest rates got what they wanted, according to a new survey from CreditCards.com of 952 cardholders.

A customer signs for a purchase with a chip credit card at a Wal-Mart location in Burbank, California. Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The success rate varied based on the type of request cardholders made:

87 percent had a late payment fee waived.

82 percent got their annual fee dropped or reduced.

69 percent received a lower interest rate. Sadly, only about half of cardholders asked their card issuers for a break, the survey found. That is real money left on the table when you consider the average late fee is roughly $25 per transaction, a rate cut of 1 percentage point can save someone $160 if they have a typical credit-card balance of $16,000, and any reduction in the annual fee is just icing on the cake. "You have to be willing to negotiate. Know what you can accept and be prepared to walk away from the table if necessary," said Matt Schulz, senior analyst at CreditCards.com.

Information is ammunition for your credit-card negotiations. Schulz recommends that people collect card offers online and keep the ones they receive in the mail to use as leverage against their current issuers when they make their requests. Haggling with card companies is more important because debt balances are creeping up to levels not seen since the financial crisis. Outstanding credit card debt topped $1 trillion at the end of 2016, according to The Nilson Report, a card and mobile payment trade publication.