0% APR offer details. Is this normal?

[cr101]

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%? 

[SouthJamaica]

---

@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.

[cr101]

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

[markbeiser]

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..

[cr101]

---

@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.

[markbeiser]

---

@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.😉

[Tdatb64]

---

@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!

[youngandcreditwrthy]

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.