topic Re: Chase Amazon Equal Pay Promo Caution in Credit Cards

Chase Amazon Equal Pay Promo Caution

CJ7 — Fri, 21 Jul 2023 20:24:20 GMT

Unexpected scenarios may occur when you have Equal Pay Promos running:

Situation 1: You pay more than the Interest Saving Balance. Any amount paid more than this amount

will be applied to the Equal Pay Promo, not your regular outstanding but *not yet due* balance.

So if you're trying to get ahead on next month's Interest Saving Balance, guess again.

Situation 2: You return something you purchased from Amazon or anywhere else, and you receive a credit

on your statement. They will treat this as a payment: it will not offset your Interest Saving Balance due;

it will be applied to your Equal Pay Promo instead. Absolutely insane.

Example: You have a $50/month Equal Pay Promo with a $250 balance remaining. You use your card

during that month to only make one purchase for $100 on Amazon and then return it for a credit.

You'd expect the $100 credit to offset the $100 purchase and you'd only owe the $50 EPP. Wrong!

You now owe $150 under the Interest Saving Balance and your EPP balance is now $150.

They just forced you to make two additional EPP payments RFN, robbing you of 2 months of 0%.

Re: Chase Amazon Equal Pay Promo Caution

FireMedic1 — Sat, 22 Jul 2023 09:12:29 GMT

Terms and Conditions:

"Equal Pay promotions do not earn % back rewards. When you place your order, the total purchase amount (including any shipping and handling costs, plus applicable taxes) will be charged to your card and deducted from your available credit."

Not everyone reads the fine print. Bottom of page:

https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=19185153011

Re: Chase Amazon Equal Pay Promo Caution

SouthJamaica — Sat, 22 Jul 2023 10:31:30 GMT

@FireMedic1 wrote:
Terms and Conditions:
"Equal Pay promotions do not earn % back rewards. When you place your order, the total purchase amount (including any shipping and handling costs, plus applicable taxes) will be charged to your card and deducted from your available credit."
Not everyone reads the fine print. Bottom of page:
https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=19185153011

I never thought about this, and looked it up to see what it is. I can't see why anyone would use it and give up their 5% cash back.

Re: Chase Amazon Equal Pay Promo Caution

Namaste7 — Sat, 22 Jul 2023 17:32:43 GMT

@CJ7 wrote:
Unexpected scenarios may occur when you have Equal Pay Promos running:

Situation 1: You pay more than the Interest Saving Balance. Any amount paid more than this amount
will be applied to the Equal Pay Promo, not your regular outstanding but *not yet due* balance.
So if you're trying to get ahead on next month's Interest Saving Balance, guess again.

Situation 2: You return something you purchased from Amazon or anywhere else, and you receive a credit
on your statement. They will treat this as a payment: it will not offset your Interest Saving Balance due;
it will be applied to your Equal Pay Promo instead. Absolutely insane.

Example: You have a $50/month Equal Pay Promo with a $250 balance remaining. You use your card
during that month to only make one purchase for $100 on Amazon and then return it for a credit.
You'd expect the $100 credit to offset the $100 purchase and you'd only owe the $50 EPP. Wrong!
You now owe $150 under the Interest Saving Balance and your EPP balance is now $150.
They just forced you to make two additional EPP payments RFN, robbing you of 2 months of 0%.

@CJ7 - I agree that Situation and Situation 2 are not expected outcomes.

To avoid this hang up, I do not combine normal purchases and interest free financing in the same period. Sometimes, I'll default to Visa for the cash back and the Store card for interest-free financing. This keeps things clean and avoids the situations you called out.

IIRC, Apple Card (Goldman Sachs) and PayPal Credit handles those situations properly by applying excess or return payments against the current purchase/balance (that's interest bearing) as opposed to the installment balance (zero- or deferred interest).

Re: Chase Amazon Equal Pay Promo Caution

Anonymous — Sat, 22 Jul 2023 17:41:29 GMT

@SouthJamaica wrote:
@FireMedic1 wrote:
Terms and Conditions:
"Equal Pay promotions do not earn % back rewards. When you place your order, the total purchase amount (including any shipping and handling costs, plus applicable taxes) will be charged to your card and deducted from your available credit."
Not everyone reads the fine print. Bottom of page:
https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=19185153011

I never thought about this, and looked it up to see what it is. I can't see why anyone would use it and give up their 5% cash back.

Think of it like a Plan It/Pay over Time etc from other issuers and here the 5% reward is the fee. If you are buying something expensive that you cannot PIF, a 12 month plan MIGHT be worth losing the 5% rewards (I guess you can get the rewards and then BT to another card, but that will usually have a fee too)

Re: Chase Amazon Equal Pay Promo Caution

CJ7 — Sat, 22 Jul 2023 18:05:57 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
12 month plan MIGHT be worth losing the 5% rewards

It certainly is when the going APR is 19.24%. I'd rather give up 5% than pay almost 20%.

Re: Chase Amazon Equal Pay Promo Caution

Lou-natic — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 08:59:13 GMT

My AMEX Business Prime card does the same thing. You can have your 5% cash back or you can get 90 days interest free but not both.