Via Personal Finance Q&A at Moneyanswertree.com

I was so close! I can’t believe I was this close and failed to reach $200 dollars in cash back rewards from Chase. A month ago I posted an article about how to save your cash back rewards because The Chase freedom card is no longer going to give the $50 dollar bonus for waiting until you have saved up $200 dollars in rewards. It is different for each person and I think it depends on the aniversary date. My $50 dollar bonus was going away June 30th, so I had up until my last statement day which was June 25th. As you can see below I just missed it. I would have made it easy if all my pending transactions had completed by midnight June 24th.

I have until June 30th. I wonder if I can call them and see what I can negotiate with them. That $3.34 could turn into $50 bucks. I know you might think thats not a big deal, but to come so close, and to have literally made it, just some delays in transactions means I don’t get the $50 dollars.

I wonder if there is a way for me to talk to them and see if they can make this happen. I would think almost 100% NOT going to happen. Why would Chase help me get more money, that is just not in the best interest of their company.

Make sure you guys check when your statements are ending, and when your $50 dollar reward is up! Don’t miss out like I am going to.

Update:
I emailed Chase this morning asking them what I can do to make up the point/cash. I asked if it was possible to transferpoints or borrow points in order to make it to the $200 mark I need to order that $250 dollar check. Here is the reply I got from Chase about 2 hours later:

I was shocked too! That was awesome! I have always been really pleased with the customer service from Chase, but this I never expected. Get a Chase card if you don’t already have one!

Here is the results already:

I will post another picture when I get the check. Please share if you had good customer service experience with Chase.

My credit card statement this month was different for the first time. I had a balance, but the minimum payment was zero dollars. This confused me. How can I have a balance and the minimum payment be zero? I didn’t think much of this and I thought it was a mistake. I setup my payment to pay off my balance in full like I always do. I needed to find out why my minimum payment would be set to zero. So I sent a message to customer service. Chase’s customer service is very good by the way. They always get back to you quickly and accommodate you well.

You can see in the picture above that my statement clearly says I carry a balance, and my minimum payment is zero.

My message to Chase was this, “I am a little confused why my last statement says minimum payment due is 0 dollars?” Here was the response I got from Chase…

Awesome! Thanks for the good news Chase, but this is a total scam. They want me to skip this payment so they can charge me interest. I’m posting this because as soon as I read this email, I had to let everyone know about it. If they allow you to “skip” a payment don’t do it. The minimum payment for my balance would have been about $18. If I had taken Chase up on this wonderful offer I’d be charged $12 dollars in interest. So this only benefits Chase. Maybe if you were really short on cash this could help you out, but for people like me who pay all their balances in full, this is just a scam to try and make a buck off you. I know $12 dollars doesn’t seem like much but multiply that by all the accounts Chase has.

What if you had setup automatic payments? Would this not go off because the minimum payment due is zero? If so, that would really screw people over.

If you liked this, or know anyone that should know about this, please share and let me know what you think below.

via MoneyAnswerTree.com
Over the past 6th months I’ve seen my credit card interest rates drop to as low as 9.24%, just to be raised again in anticipation of the new credit card bill passed by President Obama, the “Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act.” The bill is intended to help consumers against credit card interest rate hikes by the banks. If this bill is supposed to help consumers against interest rate hikes why did mine just go up?

What does this mean for current card holders?
In the next several months you should be getting letters in the mail from your credit card companies explaining new changes to your terms & conditions. You will see higher interest rates and fees because they will no longer be able to change the APR’s on existing balances under the new bill.

What does this mean for new credit card offers?
It will be much harder to get approved for a credit card. They are tightening up who they allow credit. If you do get accepted, you will see a lower credit limit than what you would expect. For those who are 21 years and under will need to show they have an independent source of income or will need a cosigner. This is particularly good because credit card companies would prey on college students often getting them into debt before they graduate. Under this new bill it also helps protect young people from being irresponsible.

How does this effect the communication between the consumer and the credit card company?
Credit issuers will no longer be able to raise interest rates on existing balances. In a case when a payment is 60 days late they are allowed to raise the rates as high as they want. Not much has changed here right? The only difference is they are required to inform you 45 days in advance and explain the reason for the increase. In addition, your statements will be sent at least 21 days before your payment is due.

To help card holders stay away from debt, statements will clearly show how much it’s costing you to borrow and how long it will take to pay off a balance if you are making the minimum payments. If you can avoid it, never pay the minimum, always pay more. If you are paying the minimum payments now, you will see when these updated statements come, that by paying only the minimum payments, you are often further in debt the next bill cycle.

Photo: AP