Potentially stupid question about 0% interest rate

findingthisdifficult

Hi,

Apologies for what seems to be a stupid question, details below:

Credit Card Statement received 15th of the month
Payment made last working day of the month

If my 0% APR on purchases ends 14/06/19 - do I need to make sure the balance is cleared by that date to avoid paying interest?
So I do I aim to clear it by May 31st following May 15th statement or will I be able to pay the final payment on June 28th following June 15th statement?

Sorry if that doesn't make sense, i've tried to keep it simple.
Thanks in advance
FTD

[Deleted User]

You need to clear it before the promo end date.

findingthisdifficult

Thanks for your help zx81

chattychappy

findingthisdifficult wrote: »

If my 0% APR on purchases ends 14/06/19 - do I need to make sure the balance is cleared by that date to avoid paying interest?

Yes, you must.

findingthisdifficult wrote: »

So I do I aim to clear it by May 31st following May 15th statement or will I be able to pay the final payment on June 28th following June 15th statement?

It has nothing to do with statement dates/due by dates. You can pay the minimum by May 31st in the usual way and send the balance by 14th June.

The promo deals are different from the "up to 56 days interest free if you pay your statement in full".

If you clear a promo deal one day late, you will pay one day's interest. On a typical APR of 24%, this is going to be around 6p per £100 of balance. Hardly punitive. You don't want to be paying it, but if you run over by a few days, no panic.

If you have a normal card (without promos) and clear your balance in full by the "due by" date, you'll pay no interest. Pay one day late and you could have 56 days' interest, a real gotcha. (Plus potentially a late payment fee if you didn't even pay the minimum.)

tlc678910

Hi,
Just to add one possible exception to paying before the promo ends.

If you have a long balance transfer offer say 0% until Jan 2020 but took out additional offers afterwards of 0% on spending or balance transfer say until May 19. When the interest rate is the same some cards allocate payment to the promotion that was taken first (rather than ending first) so if this is the case for your card you would want to wait until the May promotion ends before paying it off in this example (in full ideally). Once interest kicks in cards allocate the payment to the balance on the higher interest rate.

If you have several promotions running at once it is important to understand how the allocation of payments works for your card.

Tlc