@Anonymous wrote:
I just applied for a Chase card and got approved...I think. I've never been approved instantly before, and they didn't mention a credit limit, so I still don't quite believe it!
Anyway, I asked for a balance transfer. I don't want the account closed due to inactivity while I am paying off the balance transfer. As long as I am making payments on the BT, is the account going to be considered active? Or do I need to be charging something to the account regularly? I have some low ($20) monthly bills; I could put one on the card. I'd rather not, if I don't have to, since they'll be accumulating interest while I am paying off the BT. Not much, admittedly, but still...
No, absolutely do not charge while the BT is running. I've been paying down a BofA BT since February, and the card is physically out of my wallet, buried deep in a drawer, to keep me from accidentally using it.
With almost every CC, payments are applied to the balance with the lowest interest. So if you have a special intro BT rate, like 0% or 1.99%, and your regular purchase APR is 12% or whatever, any new purchase will sit there accumulating interest, while your payments continue to knock down the BT.
DH did this with a charge for a hundred bucks or so, and he wound up paying some sort of gi-normous interest by the time his 0% BT was killed off. The banks love it when you do this, though.
Paying down the BT will keep the account active. But you might plan for some nice big purchase for when you've cleared it off to cheer up Chase. Then PF the new purchase. They make money from their transaction fees when you buy; you don't need to give them interest money as well.
Congrats on the new card! Chase can be goofy in the start-up stage, but once I finally got my card and all, I've been happy with them.
Thanks! I knew payments went the lowest-interest debt first, and I really didn't want to have new charges collecting interest. But I didn't know if just paying down a balance was enough to keep a card active. I feel much better now! 