How does Cash Advance work?

[Revelate]

If you're attempting to run your life through your cards, and want to demonstrate that you at one point carried a balance (and then paid it off), doing a cash advance at $9-10 and then simply writing a check for it... instead of writing the check for whatever you would've otherwised in the first place, can be beneficial.

Beyond silly tricks in trying to rebuild though, there's usually other ways to go about things, but as a previous poster said, it's basicallly a short-term loan if needed, and that can be useful especially if you have a lack of things to secure against (house, car, etc) and you'd rather not take the extreme interest rates which come with unsecured loans to individuals of subpar credit.

There's a time and a place for them in today's current financial world.

[Anonymous]

Discover More card is absolutely the best card for cash advances. You can visit grocery chains such as Food Outlet, Ralphs, Safeway and even Walmart do what Discover calls a "cash over" your purchase. It is treated as a standard purchase with no ATM, Bank or other hidden fees. It is awesome! Sound like an infomercial LOL!

[john398]

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@dalebb wrote:

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@CS800 wrote:

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@dalebb wrote:

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@CS800 wrote:

Nice I didnt know that.

So it's like using debit for your payment and you ask the cashier like $20 cashback?

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60 at walmart

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$60 is the min at WM or the min for a discover 'cashback'?

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max cash back at walmart

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I can get $60 cashback cash advance on my walmart card as well, not sure about the fees though

[Anonymous]

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@ArisGreek wrote:

Cash Advances are for emergencies I think. I had to use it once. I was in Cairo and got pick pocketed. Fortunately, I had my credit cards in my front pocket. The stupid thing was all my money and ID was in my wallet in my BACK pocket. I had about $1,000 in US currency converted to foreign currency. DOH! Stupid stupid stupid! I was 23 at the time so about 8 years ago. I had no choice but to do a cash advance. It saved me since hardly any places but hotels took credit cards in Egypt.  

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Never put your wallet in your back pocket -- only Americans do that, and they are always targeted in tourist areas overseas because it's easier to swipe a wallet in your back pocket.

FWIW -- I'm a front pocket guy all the time.

[CS800]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hi all! I recently got approved for a Capital One Spark Business card with a cl of $5000. And it  says it has a cash limit of $2500.

The card also came with a pin number. Does that mean I can go to an ATM and withdraw cash from the card? and if so, how much?

I'm not actually going to do this, I was just wondering how that works.

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Some of the cash advance fees are crazy. I was just looking at my Barclay Visa.

[CS800]

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@learnin113 wrote:
Cash advances only exist to see how well u can ignore it. Do not touch it. Don't even look at it.

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Do tell why?

[CS800]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Discover More card is absolutely the best card for cash advances. You can visit grocery chains such as Food Outlet, Ralphs, Safeway and even Walmart do what Discover calls a "cash over" your purchase. It is treated as a standard purchase with no ATM, Bank or other hidden fess. It is awesome!

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I agree that in itself makes me want to use the More than the Freedom.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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Never put your wallet in your back pocket -- only Americans do that, and they are always targeted in tourist areas overseas because it's easier to swipe a wallet in your back pocket.

FWIW -- I'm a front pocket guy all the time.

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Or better yet wear two layers of clothes when traveling in areas with pickpockets. Wear a pair of shorts with pockets and have your wallet in your shorts pockets, then have a second baggy layer of shorts or jeans over them.

[Anonymous]

I agree that, generally speaking, cash advances are a really bad idea because they usually involve very high interest rates and big fees.  Usually.  

There is at least one oddball exception that I'd like to share with you:  I'm a member of RTN credit union where the APR on cash advances is 8.24% (t's actually lower than the purchases rate of 9.99%!) and the fee is a flat $2.   I don't understand the reasoning but this is how it is.  It's not a misprint or a mistake either -- it's been like this for a couple of years and I've availed myself of it twice.  For my most recent advance, they were actually running a special for cash advances for 2.99% with no fees.  Strange, but true.

[ChesterPDexter]

Yes, I was trying to communicate the same thing walker919 is saying.  Not only does USAA charge no fee, but the APR is the same as the purchase rate.  What's so bad about a cash advance now?  Well, interest accrues immediately; there is no grace period.  That's the only thing negative I can say about it.  It is what it is.  It's a loan in a pinch.  I've used it to make sure I am not late on a bill when the bill is due before a paycheck comes in, and then I paid back the cash advance when the paycheck comes in.  I bet the interest I paid was less than the late fee (and the record of having paid late) I would have suffered from on the bill.

Payday lenders use a similar approach - but if you have good credit, you can do your own payday loans this way.  That's the whole reason for having good personal credit - hello!  The interest is minimal.  Pennies?  A couple of dollars, probably?  There's no need to paint everything with such a broad brush.  Don't you guys know that there are people out there saying (adopting caveman voice now) "uhhhh... cash good... credit cards bad...."

There's no need to say "uhh... credit cards good... cash advance evil."  Use your brain and understand the terms and you'll see that no financial instrument is inherently evil - it's only harmful if you are not mindful of what you are doing.