Do you want to give your son access to your credit card? How about your new employee? If so you have some decisions to make. You will be adding him as a “new user” to what is called a multi-user account.  Do  you want to add him to a single-card or a multi-card account? That depends.

Do you want him to have his own card or his own predefined spending limit? Because single-card and multi-card accounts have different options. Let’s look at their differences in terms of set up and credit limit & spending options.

SINGLE CARD PRODUCTS

SINGLE-CARD SET UP: Let’s say you want to add a single user – your adolescent son – to your ”single card” credit card account.  Before you add him to your account, you need to decide whether you want him to have his own credit card because he will not get one automatically.

Customers often assume that a physical card will be mailed out for use by the new user  as soon as that person is added to an account, but adding a new user to an existing account is really a two-step process. You 1) add the user and then 2) order the card. 

I bring this up because customers frequently call in about this issue. Typically, the primary cardholder has added a family member to his or her account and believes that a card for the new user will be mailed to him. The primary cardholder usually waits a couple of weeks before calling back in to ask why he hasn’t received the new card for the new user. [Read more →]

Here’s a balance transfer warning: what to look out for when you are transacting balance transfers on your credit card account.

If you read my post on “balance transfer nightmares” then you may remember that there are three kinds of balance transfers. In that post , I described the nightmare that can occur with type three, in which you order a “direct” check made out to yourself.

Today’s tip relates to the second type of balance transfer check, one that you make out to a third party payee.

While this is not – necessarily – the nightmare that the previous problem I described can be, it still is a hassle that has the potential to steal lots of your time and destroy your peace of mind before you get it sorted out.

Yet, it can be avoided with a little planning on your part. Let me explain with a useful example. [Read more →]

If you are juggling funds and it would help you to skip a credit card cycle, you might see if you can take advantage of a glitch that sometimes happens with some credit card company software.

This glitch can occur when you update your personal information on a credit card account.  When it does occur, the update messes  up your credit card billing cycle and creates a credit card billing problem.

If you update your address on your credit card, including changing your zip code, the agent will probably warn you that this may cause a small change to your statement and due date (less than three days difference earlier or later.)

What he doesn’t tell you is that the software being used can  cause an account to completely lose a billing cycle. This can mean, for example, that in the month following the “update” there will be no billing. Whatever you owe for that month will just get added on to the next cycle. Everyone in the business knows that this happens, but I’ve never heard an explanation as to what causes it. [Read more →]