I use Care Credit to pay the vet bills for my cats. Anything over $200 can get 18 months deferred interest. I always pay it off before the 18 months is up.
Today, the bill was only $140, and I accidentally used Care Credit. So there's no deferred interest this time. Then I started wondering if I would be charged interest as soon as the charge posts. I'm not sure if Care Credit even has a grace period!
I have a previous balance from previous deferred interest vet visits. When googling for the answer, I saw something that says they have 23 days grace period if you have no previous balance, but I do.
Can anyone with this card tell me definitively when the interest will start? Do I wait until the statement cuts and pay $140 over whatever the minimum is, or do I need to watch and see when the charge hits the account and pay $140 that day?
@JoeRockhead wrote:The only grace period (in your case) would be the time between when your statement cuts, and your due date.... any balances remaining unpaid by the due date that aren't part of a "promotional purchase" would start accruing interest at that point.
You can pay it anytime after it posts to your account up to your due date and avoid paying interest.
I was able to get on Synchrony chat today to ask and they said that the grace period is 25 days. So as you say, I should be able to wait until the statement cuts and shouldn't need to rush off to pay it now.
@youngandcreditwrthy wrote:@dlister70 the way it will work is that anything above the min payment due on the statement that includes the 140 charge will be applied to the balance with the higher interest rate, so you'll prob have to pay the min payment (which will get applied to the deferred interest promo balance) and then pay the whole 140 so it gets applied to that higher rate balance
That was my thought as well. I'll pay minimum plus $140 and be more careful to wait until the balance is $200 or more (to get the 0% promotions) in the future.
@dlister70 wrote:I use Care Credit to pay the vet bills for my cats. Anything over $200 can get 18 months deferred interest. I always pay it off before the 18 months is up.
Today, the bill was only $140, and I accidentally used Care Credit. So there's no deferred interest this time. Then I started wondering if I would be charged interest as soon as the charge posts. I'm not sure if Care Credit even has a grace period!
I have a previous balance from previous deferred interest vet visits. When googling for the answer, I saw something that says they have 23 days grace period if you have no previous balance, but I do.
Can anyone with this card tell me definitively when the interest will start? Do I wait until the statement cuts and pay $140 over whatever the minimum is, or do I need to watch and see when the charge hits the account and pay $140 that day?
If I were you I would pay it right away, rather than mess around.
Well they did charge interest on this.
The $140 charge was made on 11/7. I had a minimum payment of $97 due on 11/25. I made a payment of $237 ($97 + $140) on 11/14.
I figured that would pay my minimum payment and the accidental $140 charge and avoid interest.
I did not have any interest on my December 1st statement, so I thought that it worked. I didn't have any charges in December, so I didn't really pay attention to my January statement until just now. I see that they charged $3.74 in interest, and the balance subject to interest is $141.79 (not $140 even).
I've been on chat with a rep for like 30 minutes trying to resolve. They did confirm that there should have been a grace period and that interest should not have been charged from the day of the purchase. Since I paid it off one week later, before the next statement even cut, this seems to mean that I shouldn't have been charged interest at all.
OH!!! Now they're saying my extra $140 was not allocated to the $140 charge, and was instead allocated to my soonest expiring promotional charge. The rep said "Please be informed that payment on the account is automatically applied to the promotion expiring first."
I thought that they had to apply it to the highest interest charge before applying it to the deferred interest charge? They said that I needed to have contacted them when I made the extra payment to specify that I wanted the $140 extra to go toward the $140 charge. So now he's saying he can't apply my extra $140 to that charge because it happened over 60 days ago. He CAN apply this months payment to the charge and credit back the interest. I just said go ahead and do that, because I'm tired of arguing about how this shouldn't have happened in the first place.
Is there a loophole in the deferred interest wording that allows them to apply the extra payment there before applying the payment to the $140 charge that is not deferred interest? I thought that this was actually illegal (and that they were required to apply the payment to the interest charge first) due to the card act of 2009, but I assume that they must have some way of explaining it so that it's legal for them to do?
What a mess. I'm tempted to never use the card again, but it's nice to spread my vet bills out. I just need to make sure to never charge less than $200 to the card so that every single charge is deferred interest. I'm glad that it wasn't a larger charge/interest and that it hopefully has been resolved. Now I have to check the February statement to be sure it's gone.
@dlister70 wrote:Well they did charge interest on this.
The $140 charge was made on 11/7. I had a minimum payment of $97 due on 11/25. I made a payment of $237 ($97 + $140) on 11/14.
I figured that would pay my minimum payment and the accidental $140 charge and avoid interest.
I did not have any interest on my December 1st statement, so I thought that it worked. I didn't have any charges in December, so I didn't really pay attention to my January statement until just now. I see that they charged $3.74 in interest, and the balance subject to interest is $141.79 (not $140 even).
I've been on chat with a rep for like 30 minutes trying to resolve. They did confirm that there should have been a grace period and that interest should not have been charged from the day of the purchase. Since I paid it off one week later, before the next statement even cut, this seems to mean that I shouldn't have been charged interest at all.
OH!!! Now they're saying my extra $140 was not allocated to the $140 charge, and was instead allocated to my soonest expiring promotional charge. The rep said "Please be informed that payment on the account is automatically applied to the promotion expiring first."
I thought that they had to apply it to the highest interest charge before applying it to the deferred interest charge? They said that I needed to have contacted them when I made the extra payment to specify that I wanted the $140 extra to go toward the $140 charge. So now he's saying he can't apply my extra $140 to that charge because it happened over 60 days ago. He CAN apply this months payment to the charge and credit back the interest. I just said go ahead and do that, because I'm tired of arguing about how this shouldn't have happened in the first place.
Is there a loophole in the deferred interest wording that allows them to apply the extra payment there before applying the payment to the $140 charge that is not deferred interest? I thought that this was actually illegal (and that they were required to apply the payment to the interest charge first) due to the card act of 2009, but I assume that they must have some way of explaining it so that it's legal for them to do?
What a mess. I'm tempted to never use the card again, but it's nice to spread my vet bills out. I just need to make sure to never charge less than $200 to the card so that every single charge is deferred interest. I'm glad that it wasn't a larger charge/interest and that it hopefully has been resolved. Now I have to check the February statement to be sure it's gone.
I hate to say I told you so.
But I told you so.
https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Care-Credit-grace-period/m-p/6720459#M1857671
@SouthJamaica wrote:I hate to say I told you so.
But I told you so.
https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Care-Credit-grace-period/m-p/6720459#M1857671
You were right, but in fairness, you said to not mess around and pay right away, and that's exactly what I did. I didn't even wait for the statement to come out, I just paid the charge a week after I made it. The part that I didn't do, and didn't realize that I HAD to do, was to call them and say "Hey, this extra $140 needs to go to that $140 charge that is not deferred interest."
I thought that they HAD to apply the overpayment that way, by law. I was wrong. Or they're doing something illegal. But I suspect that there's some kind of loophole that allows them to do what they did.