topic Re: Chase lowers APR on my Freedom Card in Credit Cards

Chase lowers APR on my Freedom Card

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 03:53:09 GMT

Got an email from Chase today stating that effective September 15 they were lowering the APR on my Freedom card from 25.99% to 17.24%. So on their own they cut the APR from the highest to the lowest available rate. Given all the comments about the impossibility of getting Chase to reduce APR this is certainly a nice surprise. I suppose its an attempt to get me to use the card more, and outside of the quarterly bonus categories, but that's not going to happen.

The email also offered to "upgrade" my Freedom card to a Freedom Unlimited card; that's a bit strange since for my needs the 5% quarterly bonus is preferable to the 1.5% cashback. I suppose if the offer said 3% cashback, as is currently available by apping for the FU, I would have considered it. But since I already have 2% cards like Citi DC, PenFed PCR there's no compelling reason to "upgrade."

Re: Chase lowers APR on my Freedom Card

Turbobuick — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 05:35:34 GMT

Congrats! The best gifts are those unexpected.

My Freedom APR is 13.49 but that was a Slate morph to Freedom.

Re: Chase lowers APR on my Freedom Card

Jnbmom — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 06:46:53 GMT

@Anonymous

Very nice

Re: Chase lowers APR on my Freedom Card

CreditInspired — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 10:17:36 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Got an email from Chase today stating that effective September 15 they were lowering the APR on my Freedom card from 25.99% to 17.24%. So on their own they cut the APR from the highest to the lowest available rate. Given all the comments about the impossibility of getting Chase to reduce APR this is certainly a nice surprise. I suppose its an attempt to get me to use the card more, and outside of the quarterly bonus categories, but that's not going to happen.

The email also offered to "upgrade" my Freedom card to a Freedom Unlimited card; that's a bit strange since for my needs the 5% quarterly bonus is preferable to the 1.5% cashback. I suppose if the offer said 3% cashback, as is currently available by apping for the FU, I would have considered it. But since I already have 2% cards like Citi DC, PenFed PCR there's no compelling reason to "upgrade."

Congratulations. There’s something in your credit profile they’re impressed with.

Re: Chase lowers APR on my Freedom Card

kdm31091 — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 11:49:47 GMT

It is true it is exceptionally rare for Chase to lower an APR, but any time people ask, they do give the spiel of "we review accounts and lower APRs if you qualify...". While I've literally never heard of anyone actually getting a reduced APR because of those supposed reviews, apparently you're one of them!

Re: Chase lowers APR on my Freedom Card

M_Smart007 — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 11:58:01 GMT

Congratulations, You may want to go buy a Lottery ticket!!!

Re: Chase lowers APR on my Freedom Card

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 12:17:20 GMT

@CreditInspired wrote:
Congratulations. There’s something in your credit profile they’re impressed with.

Thanks. Unfortunately they weren't impressed enough to have any in-branch pre-approvals for me. I stopped in at my local branch after getting the email in the hopes of applying for a Freedom Unlimited but there were no pre-approvals on my account; the last one I got was for a CSR last December. The personal banker tried to get me to apply anyway but I declined since I knew I'm currently 13/24 and wouldn't get under 5/24 until June 2020.

Re: Chase lowers APR on my Freedom Card

CreditInspired — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 13:23:22 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@CreditInspired wrote:
Congratulations. There’s something in your credit profile they’re impressed with.
Thanks. Unfortunately they weren't impressed enough to have any in-branch pre-approvals for me. I stopped in at my local branch after getting the email in the hopes of applying for a Freedom Unlimited but there were no pre-approvals on my account; the last one I got was for a CSR last December. The personal banker tried to get me to apply anyway but I declined since I knew I'm currently 13/24 and wouldn't get under 5/24 until June 2020.

Re: Chase lowers APR on my Freedom Card

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 13:56:20 GMT

Maize.....wake up....you're dreaming.

Did you rub your rabbit's foot or pick up a horseshoe lately? I agree with the others, go buy a lottery ticket today.

Re: Chase lowers APR on my Freedom Card

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 14:54:56 GMT

@OP, Congratulations on this extremely rare phenomenon.
After the Fed cut interest rates last week, I was hopeful this starts happening to all of us soon. But I did not expect Chase to play ball!

Re: Chase lowers APR on my Freedom Card

K-in-Boston — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 15:11:24 GMT

Congrats! That's certainly much better than the letters some of us received a few years ago when they raised our 12-14% APR cards to 15.99% (and with prime rate increases those are of course now 17.x%) "because your APRs are below the lowest APRs we currently offer on similar accounts." Always nice to hear about the rare unicorn from Chase, though!

Re: Chase lowers APR on my Freedom Card

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 16:26:15 GMT

Congratulations, indeed!! Can you put in a good word for me?

Re: Chase lowers APR on my Freedom Card

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Aug 2019 18:00:36 GMT

Chase just recently brought down my reserve from 19.24 to 18.99, I know it isn’t much but it did go down.

I don’t carry balance so it doesn’t make a difference to me

Re: Chase lowers APR on my Freedom Card

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Aug 2019 18:04:11 GMT

@K-in-Boston ... my increases ran from 10.9% to whatever today's posted rate is! There are few lenders that have rates we would benefit by carrying a balance so 12.9% or 27.9% it is too much for me. Only thing I could think of is an emergency to carry?

Re: Chase lowers APR on my Freedom Card

Aim_High — Sat, 10 Aug 2019 18:33:49 GMT

@Anonymous wrote: Got an email from Chase today stating that effective September 15 they were lowering the APR on my Freedom card from 25.99% to 17.24%. So on their own they cut the APR from the highest to the lowest available rate. Given all the comments about the impossibility of getting Chase to reduce APR this is certainly a nice surprise.

Wow, Congrats @Anonymous !! That is awesome!

I have been a credit customer (not banking) with Chase for 19 years now.

My oldest account (opened as a SLATE Visa) is now a Freedom Unlimited Visa.

I've never had a BK or any Derogs, rarely even any minor lates over all my credit history with any lender.

My credit scores for last few years have been solid 800-850 range with low utilization.

Chase is my largest lender (5 lines of credit worth $138,400 TCL.)

Chase has also been good to me with balance transfer offers when I was carrying some debt.

Yet many many years ago (15+?) for some reason which I don't even recall, they jacked

my APR on that oldest account to the penalty APR ... currently 29.49%!!!

It's abhorrent and no good reason for it; it's my biggest gripe with Chase.

I, too, have gotten the "we review our accounts periodically" line when I tried to lower it.

I choose to keep the account open because it's one of my older ones and I never pay interest anyway.

But it's the principle of the thing. Like they are holding a grudge for some reason.

So maybe this is good news and hope that they may finally soften on this penalty APR crap.

*Incidentally, on all the other cards they have approved me for in the past 15 months,

I've been given the best available rate for that card. So this one is very inconsistent!

And except for USAA, no other lender has been so stubborn when I approached them

for interest rate adjustments.

Re: Chase lowers APR on my Freedom Card

Anonymous — Sun, 11 Aug 2019 13:06:06 GMT

I also received this offer. Honestly, it doesn’t really excite me that much. I’d rather have been offered a quarterly spending bonus or something like that. I honestly think that was a feel-good gesture intended to persuade me to “upgrade” to the Unlimited - not happening.

I will say though, Chase has been really good to me. I have five credit cards with them and I even got an unsolicited CLI on my Freedom last year. And they gave me my first two cards with sizable limits when I had not-so-great scores and no prior banking relationship.

Re: Chase lowers APR on my Freedom Card

kdm31091 — Sun, 11 Aug 2019 13:13:08 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I also received this offer. Honestly, it doesn’t really excite me that much. I’d rather have been offered a quarterly spending bonus or something like that. I honestly think that was a feel-good gesture intended to persuade me to “upgrade” to the Unlimited - not happening.

I will say though, Chase has been really good to me. I have five credit cards with them and I even got an unsolicited CLI on my Freedom last year. And they gave me my first two cards with sizable limits when I had not-so-great scores and no prior banking relationship.

They have definitely been pushing people towards the Unlimited vs the regular Freedom for quite awhile. Obviously cheaper for them to pay out flat 1.5% vs the 5% on categories.

Re: Chase lowers APR on my Freedom Card

GeorgiaBulldog — Tue, 13 Aug 2019 20:13:37 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Chase just recently brought down my reserve from 19.24 to 18.99, I know it isn’t much but it did go down.

I don’t carry balance so it doesn’t make a difference to me

Sounds like Chase didn't lower your APR, but rather the Fed cutting the prime rate by .25% led to you having a lower APR.

Re: Chase lowers APR on my Freedom Card

Gmood1 — Tue, 13 Aug 2019 21:41:09 GMT

Congratulations MnB!
I received the same offer email last week.
Received a letter yesterday stating the same thing.
Decided I'll just keep the regular Freedom and sky high APR. lol

Re: Chase lowers APR on my Freedom Card

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Aug 2019 21:54:10 GMT

@Gmood1 No, the APR reduction is independent of the offer to upgrade.

Wish I could get it. I called and asked to lower and they said call back after the promotional 0% APR.