Tag Archive | "average daily balance"

Understanding Credit Card Interest Rates

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APR or Annual Percentage Rate determines the total cost of your credit in terms of annual rate. You should carefully understand the APR and different facts related to it.

Different APRs on Various Transactions

Different Credit Card Companies

Usually creditors allow users to use their credit cards with full freedom by giving them introductory APRs on various transactions. Promotional APRs mean that you have a lower APR on various kinds of transactions for a particular time period. The APR returns to the original point after the end of promotional period. Users can save a great amount of money by using these low promotional rates.

What to Avoid?

You should avoid penalty or default APR. These are usually the higher APRs that are imposed on the late payments. The detail of penalty APRs is within the account agreement.

Fair Comparison of Variable & Fixed APRs

You have different APRs among which some are variable or some may be non-variable. Let’s have a look on the difference between variable and non-variable APRs.

Generally, variable APRs are calculated by the addition of a margin that can be determined by the credit card issuer to the index (also called as reference rate) like the United States Prime Rate. There is a direct relationship of variable APR and the Prime Rate i.e. when the prime rate rises, variable APR rises, however, it is dependable on your issuer that when they update your rates. Your account contract contains information about variable APRs change.

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Credit Card Grace Period

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Credit card grace period is the time period, that is between the end of your billing cycle and your payment due date. This time period is usually between 20 and 25 days, allowing you to make a payment for the prior month’s purchases without accruing any interest on those items.

grace_period

So this makes the due date that is stated your statement, the time when the grace period ends. After that date, the interest will start accruing ion any unpaid portion of your balance if your APR is greater than 0%.

It is also possible that the grace period is ultimately wiped out in some cases. This happens if you typically carry a balance on your credit card from month to month, and fail to pay your accounts in full.

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