No credit card required
Browse credit cards from a variety of issuers to see if there's a better card for you.
My apologies in advance if this has been talked to death with a definite answer. It's just that all my research seems to give me conflicting answers, and I have tried googling it, searches here on the Forum, etc.
So to flesh out the question in the subject line. Suppose my Citi Doublecash typically has a statement that prints on the 10th of the month. Suppose I have make no transactions for the last 90 days, and I paid the balance in full 70 days ago.
I then make a $300 purchase on May 15 and it posts on May 16. I realize I am certain to get the first 1% cashback. Suppose I pay the entire $300 balance off on May 17. (My balance is back down to $0) Will I still get the second 1% cashback as well?
If the fact that I am paying almost immediately creates a risk of not getting the second 1%, how long do I need to wait for there to be no such risk. Is 10 days enough? Do I need to wait till a day after the next statement prints?
Many thanks for any help, and also if anyone knows of supporting links or documentation for their position that would also help.
no, in fact paying before the statement cuts gives you the 2% right away when the statement cuts.....
No
Each month, I charge, let pending charges post and pay before the
statement date and receive the full 2% on all credit charges.
If you pay after the statement cuts, you will see 1% and then get
the other 1% the following month.
The only way to not get full credit would be to push money that would pay
pending charges before they posted.They might even have a way to cover that.
Just got approved yesterday for DC so this is good to know.
@Kforce wrote:
No
Each month, I charge, let pending charges post and pay before the
statement date and receive the full 2% on all credit charges.
If you pay after the statement cuts, you will see 1% and then get
the other 1% the following month.
The only way to not get full credit would be to push money that would pay
pending charges before they posted.They might even have a way to cover that.
Well, the common way to get (slightly) less than the full credit is to use the rewards for statement credit. Then you get 1.99% Similar with using statement credit with Chase Amazon, although there the hit is slightly bigger
@Kforce wrote:
No
Each month, I charge, let pending charges post and pay before the
statement date and receive the full 2% on all credit charges.
If you pay after the statement cuts, you will see 1% and then get
the other 1% the following month.
The only way to not get full credit would be to push money that would pay
pending charges before they posted.They might even have a way to cover that.
I respectfully disagree. (Edit. I can't read. )
To answer CGID's question - you don't have to wait.
I pay my cards biweekly, and have some scheduled payments pushed from my bank for recurring charges.
For the statement generated in April, I had pushed funds from my bank to pay for charges that were still pending when the billing cycle closed, resuting in my account balance reflecting overpayment of $313.74.
Below is the purchase tracker for my account from my statement closing in April, where the reported balance was an overpaid one. You get 1% for purchases that post in during a billing cycle, and you get 1% for all payments within that billing cycle. I went through my transactions, and the eligible purchses and eligible payments equaled these amounts for that cycle.
@python0704 wrote:
After a couple months with the card you probably won't care if you have to get all 2% of the purchase and the corresponding payment in this statement after it cuts. It's just personal preference. I'm perfectly fine that I get 1% for this statement's purchase and 1% for last statement's payment.
I have had the card for a couple years. But I will be needing to pay it $0 within the same statement cycle every month for the next six months as I prepare for a mortgage, and I wanted to confirm that I don't lose half of my cash back.
Like you, I don't care exactly when I get my cash back. I just want to make sure I get the full cash back.
Thanks to everyone for the very helpful replies. It sounds like it doesn't matter when I make my payments -- I will still ultimately get the full 2% back. Let me know if I am misunderstanding the apparently unanimous consensus.
Unless I am interpreting this wrong.
You will lose if you push money to pay pending charges and the
payment post before the charges are posted in the purchase tracker.
This is one card that I never pay pending charges on.
The numbers to look at are the ending purchase tracker value and
your current balance. They should be equal. If your balance is less than
the tracker value you will lose 1% of the difference.
The easy way is to pay from the Citi page, it will only let you pay what has
posted. If you want to push money don't push more than the amount that
has posted
Hi Kforce. So to be safest, you are saying that I'd want to wait until a purchase has appeared in the purchase tracker.
Here are the sequence of events, each as a separate milestone:
(a) I make the purchase.
(b) It appears in my online portal as "pending"
(c) It moves from a status of pending to having offically posted to the account.
(d) It appears on the purchase tracker
We all know that the events (B) and (C) can be separated by 2 days, 3 days, or even more.
But do (C) and (D) always happen at the same time -- or at worst separated by a few minutes? Or can they be separated by hours, a day, or even perhaps 2+ days?
I'd like to be able to simply look at my balance and see what has posted (on the primary screen) without having to cross check each posted purchase with the Purchase Tracker.