@creditwherecreditisdue wrote:
Sometimes BT's, sometimes cash advances, sometimes different from same issuer. You have to read the fine print on every offer. Chase recently issued a change in terms regarding these checks to many cardholders. Mine says:
(G) BALANCE TRANSFER CHECKS ASSESSED CASH ADVANCE
RATES AND FEES. The portion of the Using Your Account
section of your Agreement that describes checks that access
your account is amended. We are adding a new sentence at the
end, and this sentence is the only change you may choose not to
accept within this section. The revised section will read
as follows:
• Checks: We may in our sole discretion provide you withcash advance checks or balance transfer checks as a way to
use your account. We also refer to them in this agreement
as a check or checks. You may use a check to pay for goods
or services, to transfer balances to your account, or for other
uses we allow. But you may not use these checks to transfer
balances to this account from other accounts or loans with
us or any of our related companies. Only the person whose
name is printed on the check may sign the check. Cash
advance checks are treated as cash advances and balance
transfer checks are treated as balance transfers except as
noted in this agreement or any offer we make to you. Any
balance transfer checks made payable to cash, to you, or
to certain persons or businesses as we will disclose to
you, may, in our sole discretion, be assessed cash advance
interest rates and fees.
From the last secion of this, it appears a person needs to be VERY careful in how you use these. By this, it appears that if you deposit it into your checking account, it could very well be considered a cash advance. Ouch.
We don't have any balances to transfer, but are trying to be prepared in case we need to carry a balance before I complete grad school. Looks as if a person, in our case, would be best to put charges on a cc, and then balance transfer at the lowest rate available.
I always used to toss these promotions, but...until I finish school...they now have their own little file in case they are ever needed.
