Avoiding Zero Penalty

[disdreamin]

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@Zoostation1 wrote:

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For MOST but not all cards they will report the balance on your statement cut date.  This may take a few days to report but will normally be whatever your balance was on the statement cut date. 

<snip>

Exceptions to this are cards issued by US Bank and Goldman Sachs (GS does Apple Card, also does GM Card via it's Marcus division).  These cards report your balance on the last day of the month, not your statement balance.  The other lender oddity is Chase bank.  If you're doing AZEO it's best to not let any card from Chase be the one reporting.  This is because while most issuers only update the reporting once a month, every time you pay chase to $0 they will report again.

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Chase is the one bank I deal with that has one of the irregularities in reporting you mentioned, and it's why I mentioned the caveat (I left it general because I don't hold other cards with odd reporting schedules). Because I'm not concerned with AZEO, I zero my Chase cards twice a month. If I was trying to do AZEO, I'd be okay with letting one of those be the cards that report as long as they are only seeing regular minimal use and as long as I'm only paying the past statement amount due right before the due date (so whatever monthly recurring charge is going onto that card would already have posted prior to the payment). It would be a little more work, so choosing another card as the one to report would be easier, as you said.

[Vuby22]

When you AZEO you care more about statement dates. Pay in full [the All Zero cards] on or slightly before the statement date and do not transact until the statement cuts. Pay in full [the Except One card] as soon as the statement cuts - meaning if it cuts, for example, on the 25th you pay it on the 26th.

Forget about due dates since you are already paying in full and should have grace periods on every purchase. This gets messed up when you do Balance Transfers and Cash Advances because those do not have grace periods (save 0% BT promos) and are usually the main culprits of trailing interest mentioned upthread.

Edit for caveats:

-the Except One card needs to be 8.9% or less utilization on the statement date or it will just wash some or all of the AZEO bonus you are trying to achieve. 

-you cannot control reporting dates. you can only assume they snapshot your statement balance on the statement date and report up to 60 days later. yes you can theorize by looking at your credit report and find the pattern of reporting but as seen by Comenity and, in my experience, GS GM Card--it can still vary and go unreported for months.

[Zoostation1]

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@Vuby22 wrote:

When you AZEO you care more about statement dates. Pay in full [the All Zero cards] on or slightly before the statement date and do not transact until the statement cuts. Pay in full [the Except One card] as soon as the statement cuts - meaning if it cuts, for example, on the 25th you pay it on the 26th.

Forget about due dates since you are already paying in full and should have grace periods on every purchase. This gets messed up when you do Balance Transfers and Cash Advances because those do not have grace periods (save 0% BT promos) and are usually the main culprits of trailing interest mentioned upthread.

Edit for caveats:

-the Except One card needs to be 8.9% or less utilization on the statement date or it will just wash some or all of the AZEO bonus you are trying to achieve. 

-you cannot control reporting dates. you can only assume they snapshot your statement balance on the statement date and report up to 60 days later. yes you can theorize by looking at your credit report and find the pattern of reporting but as seen by Comenity and, in my experience, GS GM Card--it can still vary and go unreported for months.

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I've been lucky that Capital One (2 of my 3 cards) has been consistent about reporting the statement closing balance. How many days it takes them to report varies month to month but it's always the statement balance.  Discover is consistent with using a balance from that day, but has not been completely consistent with regards to transactions initiated on the statement closing date.  I've inititated transactions on the closing date 3 times, and 2 of those instances did not get reported.  The 3rd time I did it they reported a pending transaction I initiated around 11pm on closing and was the only time my statement had a $0 balance but my reported was $23 (I personally don't think they should be allowed to report pending transactions but I don't make the rules/laws).  To be on the safe side I don't any of my $0 cards on the closing date at all anymore.