@ adults w credit cards

[piichinu]

hey have a question for credit card people here (im american if that matters)

credit cards have limits and all that yeh but u can pay them before the month/cycle is up. if you pay your credit card, can you continue to spend the same day? or do you have to wait for the money to be physically withdrawn?

im buying a laptop and my mom just paid her card off so we wouldn't go over the limit but she (FOR SOME REASON???) doesnt know if you can spend immediately after paying (it says: "the payment to your credit card account will be dated on 02/28/2017) or if you have to wait for the money to actually be withdrawn from your account (it says: "the withdrawal from your pay-from account will generally occur within 2 business days of this payment date").

so which is it?? let me know if i need to explain more

 

[Rizies]

Typically when you make a purchase on a credit card or can take up to a few business days to put the charge on it. It can also take a few business days to pay off the credit card (even though the money from the account will be withdrawn almost immediately).

In order to prevent a card for maxing out it's credit limit, you can over pay it. For example, your limit is $100 and you want to make a purchase of $200. If your credit card is at a $0 balance you can pay the credit card at $100. So the balance on the credit card is -$100.

Since it takes a few days to process payments onto the credit card, and a few days to pay it off they can like counter act each other. If that makes sense. The bank can see that your over-paying prior to the payment of the computer, which can avoid the over charge.

In my situations in order to get a zero balance on your credit card, I would have to not use it for a week, pay it off, then not use it for a week essentially. It wouldn't be practical to use it this way, and no one would use a credit card.

At least that's what I think.

 

[Dogemon]

Yeah Rizies is correct, it can take a few days for payment to process and it is better to wait than test it because while you technically are doing things right, it can lead to errors popping up and lots of time spent on the phone with support, in my experience.