topic Re: 0% APR offer details. Is this normal? in Credit Cards

0% APR offer details. Is this normal?

cr101 — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 02:43:51 GMT

I have had a 0% APR offer from a CC company. Today, I realized that I was charged a few dollars in interest. The offer doesn't expire til about 30 days from now, so I was confused. They confirmed that the offer expires next month, but stated that the offer was only for purchases made through mid-Nov. My statements even say that it ends at the end of next month. The chat rep also pulled up a chat log in which the rep told me those 2 conflicting dates last month. I guess that I just didn't care or pay attention at the time, but based on my statements, I expected all charges through at least the end of this month to be at 0%. So, my q is you think that they are wrong for, IMO, miswording this on the statement? If you get a 0% offer and your statement says "0% through 12/31/2023", would you expect to be able to make a charge on 12/1, for instance, and have it be charged at 0%?

Re: 0% APR offer details. Is this normal?

SouthJamaica — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 22:26:45 GMT

@cr101 wrote:
I have had a 0% APR offer from a CC company. Today, I realized that I was charged a few dollars in interest. The offer doesn't expire til about 30 days from now, so I was confused. They confirmed that the offer expires next month, but stated that the offer was only for purchases made through mid-Nov. My statements even say that it ends at the end of next month. The chat rep also pulled up a chat log in which the rep told me those 2 conflicting dates last month. I guess that I just didn't care or pay attention at the time, but based on my statements, I expected all charges through at least the end of this month to be at 0%. So, my q is you think that they are wrong for, IMO, miswording this on the statement? If you get a 0% offer and your statement says "0% through 12/31/2023", would you expect to be able to make a charge on 12/1, for instance, and have it be charged at 0%?

It usually specifies 2 different periods, one the period during which the promo interest rate is applied, the other being the period during which the purchases must be made.

Re: 0% APR offer details. Is this normal?

cr101 — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 22:30:02 GMT

Thanks. I guess that I never noticed and just happened to never accrue interest when I previously had the offers. Lesson learned!

Re: 0% APR offer details. Is this normal?

markbeiser — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 23:55:12 GMT

It is fairly common, though usually the time window to make the purchases is much shorter than actual 0% interest period.
Ie. 12 month 0% on purchases made in the first 90 days, etc..

Re: 0% APR offer details. Is this normal?

cr101 — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 00:51:45 GMT

@markbeiser wrote:
It is fairly common, though usually the time window to make the purchases is much shorter than actual 0% interest period.
Ie. 12 month 0% on purchases made in the first 90 days, etc..

Thanks for that example. For some reason, I couldn't wrap my brain around why the purchase cut-off was diff than the 0% end date. But, it makes sense now that I've seen your example.

Re: 0% APR offer details. Is this normal?

markbeiser — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 05:05:32 GMT

@cr101 wrote:
@markbeiser wrote:
It is fairly common, though usually the time window to make the purchases is much shorter than actual 0% interest period.
Ie. 12 month 0% on purchases made in the first 90 days, etc..

Thanks for that example. For some reason, I couldn't wrap my brain around why the purchase cut-off was diff than the 0% end date. But, it makes sense now that I've seen your example.

The devil is in the fine print of the papers they send after you are approved for the new card, which almost nobody reads.😉

Re: 0% APR offer details. Is this normal?

Tdatb64 — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 14:08:33 GMT

@markbeiser wrote:
It is fairly common, though usually the time window to make the purchases is much shorter than actual 0% interest period.
Ie. 12 month 0% on purchases made in the first 90 days, etc..

I, admittedly, haven't had a lot of cards but all of them have been full-period 0% on purchases but balance transfers worked like that (i.e. 0% for 15 months on balance transfers made in the first 90 days, 0% for the first 15 months on all purchases). I'd like to know what card the op is referring to so I can avoid it in the future!

Re: 0% APR offer details. Is this normal?

youngandcreditwrthy — Sun, 03 Dec 2023 15:40:24 GMT

me too. It used to be for purchases on most cards, you'd get the whole period for example when I got BCE, it was 12 mos 0% for bts made in first 3 months and 12 mos 0% on purchases made in that 12 mos then when it expires, you better **bleep** well have all the savings to pay it off or you're gonna get that 20% or whatever it was back inthe day.