Q: I’ve applied for the Chase Freedom card. I’m now looking at my monthly budget. If Chase accepts my application, when will my monthly payment be due?
A: You payment due date, as with most credit cards, depends on when you activate your Chase Freedom — or any Chase card — account. The federal Credit CARD act also plays a role.
You might remember hearing complaints from consumers that credit card companies were setting payment due dates that came perilously close to when their monthly statements arrived in consumer mailboxes each month. This gave cardholders little time to mail in their payments before the due date.
And if they didn’t send them in quickly enough?
You guessed it: They were hit with late charges and, often, exorbitantly high penalty interest rates.
The Credit CARD Act, though, made this practice illegal.
Credit card issuers now have to provide consumers with more time to mail in their payments before their due dates roll around.
In the case of the Chase Freedom card, your monthly due date will be at least 21 days after the close of each billing cycle. The close your billing cycle, of course, depends on when you activate your account.
Regardless, you should now have plenty of time to send in your credit card payment before your due date. Or you could set up automatic payments so that you never miss a payment again.
If you do set up an automatic payment, be sure to maintain an adequate balance in your bank account to prevent a failed payment for insufficient funds. That would then ding you twice. Once for a penalty from your bank. And the second time from Chase for a late fee and interest charges to boot.
To learn more about Chase cards, check out our Guide to Chase Credit Cards.
