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Question about Chase Freedom's $100 signup offer

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dndandrea
Established Member

Question about Chase Freedom's $100 signup offer

The offer states that if you spend $500 in the first 3 months you receive $100 cash back bonus. My credit limit is $1000 but as my first credit card I understand I should only be spending around 10% of that limit. Would it be ok to spend 30% of the limit for the first three months or will it just hurt me in the long run? I'm purchasing some tires tomorrow and I was thinking now would be a good time to put $200-$300 of it on my credit card if I can. Sorry for the stupid question but I don't want to take any chances!

Message 1 of 27
26 REPLIES 26
BrokaToe
Established Contributor

Re: Question about Chase Freedom's $100 signup offer

Hey there's no stupid questions around here. You can't learn if you don't ask. Smiley Happy

 

Anyway, you can spend as much on the card as you want, just as long as you have it paid down to around 9% util before the statement cuts. And in reality that doesn't even matter unless you'll be applying for credit sometime soon. But it is still best to keep your reported util less than 30% or so even when not applying. Just my thoughts on it.

 

Edit: You can make multiple payments during a month to help control your reported util.


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Message 2 of 27
enharu
Super Contributor

Re: Question about Chase Freedom's $100 signup offer

You can even put $1000 on it if you would like.

 

What they mean by utilization is the balance REPORTED at the end of each statement.

You can spend $1000, pay $800, leave $200 balance remaining and end up with 20% utilization.

 

Utilization in this case does not equal spending in the cycle.

Utilization is whatever you owe them that remains unpaid and carried over to next cycle.

 

If you want to maximize your rewards, you can even charge >$1000 each month onto the card. You just have to pay more than once each billing cycle, and the total amount in 1 transaction cannot exceed your credit limit since Chase has a hard limit. For example, I had $2000 CL for my chase card but I spend 4.8k and paid 4.9k last month.

 

JPMorgan Palladium (100k), AmEx Platinum (NPSL), AmEx SPG (46k), AmEx BCP (42k), Chase Sapphire Preferred (47k), Citi Prestige (31k), Citi Thank You Preferred (27k), Citi Executive AAdvantage (25k), JPMorgan Ritz-Carlton (21k), Merrill+ (15k), US Bank Cash+ (22.5k), Wells Fargo (12k), Bloomingdale’s (12.4k), Chase Freedom (5k), Discover IT (5k).
Message 3 of 27
dndandrea
Established Member

Re: Question about Chase Freedom's $100 signup offer

Thanks for the replies. I still have to learn how the payments work and balances. You're saying I could could charge $600 tomorrow and then the next day I can just pay the balance down to $0? I'm not sure how the due dates work at all to be quite honest. I never plan on carrying a balance. I always plan on paying it off every month, i have tons of money in my bank to handle paying it off plus a job. I changed my due date to the 5th of every month. Does that mean I get the statement on the 5th and i have X amount of days to pay it? Or does that mean i have to pay by the 5th? Now i'm getting off track but at least you answered my first question, thanks!

 

edit: I think i get it. I can use it however i'd like, but before the 5th (my due date) i need to pay the balance down to about 20%. Then the statement will come to me with 20% ratio and I pay that off as my total balance for the statement/month?

Message 4 of 27
BrokaToe
Established Contributor

Re: Question about Chase Freedom's $100 signup offer

Statement cut dates and payment due dates are two different animals.

 

Your statement cut date is normally 3 days after your payment due date.

 

If your next payment due date is the 5th of April, then that means all of last months purchases would of had to of been paid in full by the 8th of this month (March), in order to report a $0 balance.  The balance when the statement cuts is what gets reported to the CB

 

But in order to avoid interest charges, you must pay the statement balance (what's reported to CB) in full by the due date.

 

Make sense?


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Message 5 of 27
enharu
Super Contributor

Re: Question about Chase Freedom's $100 signup offer

if you charge $600 tomorrow, and assuming the transaction takes 1 day to post, you can PIF anytime. once you pay in full, you owe $0 and your utilization is therefore 0%.

 

Your statement is generated a few days after the due date. If you can pay in full anytime before 5pm EST on the due date itself, your balance on your statement is $0.

 

JPMorgan Palladium (100k), AmEx Platinum (NPSL), AmEx SPG (46k), AmEx BCP (42k), Chase Sapphire Preferred (47k), Citi Prestige (31k), Citi Thank You Preferred (27k), Citi Executive AAdvantage (25k), JPMorgan Ritz-Carlton (21k), Merrill+ (15k), US Bank Cash+ (22.5k), Wells Fargo (12k), Bloomingdale’s (12.4k), Chase Freedom (5k), Discover IT (5k).
Message 6 of 27
BrokaToe
Established Contributor

Re: Question about Chase Freedom's $100 signup offer


@enharu wrote:

if you charge $600 tomorrow, and assuming the transaction takes 1 day to post, you can PIF anytime. once you pay in full, you owe $0 and your utilization is therefore 0%.

 

Your statement is generated a few days after the due date. If you can pay in full anytime before 5pm EST on the due date itself, your balance on your statement is $0.

 


Actually the statement cut is for current cycles purchases. What's due on the due date is for the previous cycles purchases.


Plus I believe with Chase, you have to give three days in between each payment. You can't submit a payment one day and then another the next, or they will hold the payment for a few days. Someone correct me if I'm wrong on that...


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Message 7 of 27
HiLine
Blogger

Re: Question about Chase Freedom's $100 signup offer


@dndandrea wrote:

Thanks for the replies. I still have to learn how the payments work and balances. You're saying I could could charge $600 tomorrow and then the next day I can just pay the balance down to $0? I'm not sure how the due dates work at all to be quite honest. I never plan on carrying a balance. I always plan on paying it off every month, i have tons of money in my bank to handle paying it off plus a job. I changed my due date to the 5th of every month. Does that mean I get the statement on the 5th and i have X amount of days to pay it? Or does that mean i have to pay by the 5th? Now i'm getting off track but at least you answered my first question, thanks!

 

edit: I think i get it. I can use it however i'd like, but before the 5th (my due date) i need to pay the balance down to about 20%. Then the statement will come to me with 20% ratio and I pay that off as my total balance for the statement/month?


There are two dates that you should be aware of:

 

First is the statement closing date, when the current balance is reported to the consumer reporting agencies, and when the bank informs you of your statement balance as well as the minimum payment.

Second is the payment due date, usually 20-25 days from the statement closing date. This is the deadline for you to make the minimum payment, and also the last day you can carry the balance left over from your statement without being charged interest.

 

For the sake of calculation utilization, you should be mindful of the first date. If you want to keep a low reported balance, you should pay almost the entire balance before the statement closes. As long as you do that, you'll maintain a low utilization ratio. Utilization is measured as the ratio of the statement balance to the credit limit.

 

Message 8 of 27
HiLine
Blogger

Re: Question about Chase Freedom's $100 signup offer


@BrokaToe wrote:

Yep, and I believe with Chase, you have to give three days in between each payment. You can't submit a payment one day and then another the next, or they will hold the payment for a few days. Someone correct me if I'm wrong on that...


Dead on! However, I believe you can circumvent this policy by manually pushing an eCheck from your bank to the Chase credit account.

 

Message 9 of 27
jamesdwi
Valued Contributor

Re: Question about Chase Freedom's $100 signup offer

that's correct, I get hit by that one lately, trying to pay it down so making weekly payments and if i push the last payment to post to close to my next paycheck i can't make another payment for a few extra days, I hate paying interest on the card. 

 

 

Cards: Chase Southwest 20k & CSR 17k & CSP 10k & FNBO 30k Oregon Duck 5k, & AMEX BCP 32.5k & Amex Magnet 15k&amg; Hilton Surpass 7.5k & Delta Gold 12k & Zync NPSL, Fidelity AMEX 17k Commerce5.9k & Cash Forward 7.5k & Sams Club MC 20k, Paypal Extras MC 10k, Paypal Credit 7.25k CapOne Venture 15k, QS 2.5k, QS 750, Amazon 10k, Walmart 10k, Citi Simplicity 18k, Discover IT 23k and a nice stack of store cards.
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Message 10 of 27
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