An Inside Look at Blueprint: Full Pay
JP Morgan Chase is rolling out a whole new approach to getting card users to pay up – make it easy. Unlike Bank of America, which is pissing people off until they refuse to pay, Chase credit card holders with a Chase Freedom, Chase Platinum, Chase Sapphire or Chase Sapphire now have sleek Web 2.0 apps to manage their credit card debt by budgeting and tracking and dividing and conquering. The whole thing feels very Mint-y and Thrive-y – which means this could be pretty cool.
Here at MYC, where we happen to have a Chase Freedom holder on board, we’ll give you an inside peek at Blueprint in action. Today, we’ll be looking at Full Pay.
Avoid paying interest on everyday purchases with Chase Blueprint’s Full Pay
The Full Pay feature is designed to let you pay no interest on certain categories of spending by paying them down first. To set up Full Pay, you choose one or more categories to include in our Full Pay payment. These categories are then separated from the rest of your spending and shown to you on your Full Pay statement. The goal is to pay down the full amount of these categories each month (thus paying no interest on those purchases). Blueprint shows you how you’ve been doing by displaying how many payments you’ve made in full since enrolling and how many you missed.
But wait, are there penalties?
Nope. Because Full Pay is an optional feature, there’s no chance of incurring additional penalties if you don’t meet your goal. (After all, you’re the one who set it.) Your Full Pay payment goes towards your normal minimum monthly payment, which is really what matters. So, let’s say you chose groceries as your Full Pay category if your normal minimum monthly payment is $200 and you spent $175 on groceries that month, you would need to pay $175 towards your Full Pay and $25 extra to cover the difference leftover for your minimum monthly payment. If, for some reason, you’d rather only spend X amount of dollars towards your Full Pay and have the rest go to your normal balance, you can do so by setting up a maximum Full Pay payment.
Different categories, different APRs
One thing to note, though, is that come February 2010, if you a category included in your Full Pay plan has a lower APR than other categories, then your payments will automatically be applied to the highest APR categories first. This is in response to the new CARD Act stipulatiosn that compel credit card companies to apply payments to high interest balances first, rather than the standard practice of forcing you to pay off high APR cash advance balances off last. Here’s the wording from the Split section, that explains it better:
Effective February 22, 2010, federal law requires that we credit your payments differently if you have a higher rate balance on your account. This may result in more or fewer payments, but your monthly plan payment amount won’t change. [...] This may affect the amount of any payment to be applied to Full Pay balance(s).
So, what’s the point? Am I really saving anything?
No, not really – you aren’t saving anything if you think about it. The deal is that you pay no interest on a certain category provided that youpay it off in full. This holds true for any kind of balance you hold on your credit card – Blueprint or no. In the end, it’s all the same big pile of debt (for now). What Blueprint does is help you track spending in a certain category. It’s about self-awareness. For example, if you set your Full Pay category as Fashion and find yourself struggling to pay off that whole category each month, then it should serve as a wake up call that you’re spending way too much on clothes.
Given that there’s no fee, no penalties and the feature is kind of cool, we recommend giving it a shot. Like any financial tool, it can help you save money by cultivating healthy spending habits.
Anyway, check out the screenshots below for an inside look.
1. At the Blueprint front page, you can learn more about Full Pay or enroll right away.
2. Here, you can setup your plan. Blueprint estimates your Full Pay amount by adding up all the purchases you made this month from the categories you check. Here, you can set up a Full Pay max payment.
3. Before you sign up, you can review your estimated Full Pay amount.
4. Full Pay doesn’t kick in until your next billing cycle. Here’s a sample of how things will look once the ball gets rolling. You can see how much you spent in each of your categories.
5. You can also see a bar graph of the spending in your chosen Full Pay categories, which can be perhaps more stirring wake up call.
6. This little box compares how much you spent on your Full Pay plan to how much you’ve racked up so far. Blueprint, somewhat unnecessarily, lets you know if you’re on track with your Full Pay plan as well.
Stay tuned for next time, when we’ll delve into Blueprint’s “Split” method. In the meantime, why not find out which Blueprint plan is best for you by taking Chase’s Financial Style Quiz.
Related posts:
- An Inside Look at Blueprint: Split, Finish and Track It
- Credit Card Review: Changes for Chase Freedom
- Credit Card Review: Chase Freedom
- Credit Score Strategy: Paying in Full vs. Credit Limit Increases
- 7 Reasons Why Sticking To the Minimum Payment Is a Dumb Idea
[...] Track It Submitted by Jack on September 18, 2009 – 5:55 amNo Comment As we mentioned earlier, Chase has rolled out some new financial tools to help you track your finances and conquer your [...]
[...] Chase is taking the “Let’s make a plan to get better” approach with its all new Blueprint, Bank of America is making a resolution to be more straightforward with its new Basic Visa card. [...]
[...] self awareness thing than an interest break, but it’s kind of neat nonetheless. Check out our inside look at Chase BluePrint for more [...]
BluePrint works best if the credit card you have has a zero balance
But if you owe a lot on the card,using blue print will only double your minimum payment.
Don’t forget you have to make the minimum payment and then bluePrint payment as well.
The possible catch to the program is this. In general, charges begin accruing interest from the date of purchase (assuming you had a balance at the beginning of the billing cycle). If you pay the full blue print payment, you will avoid paying interest on the full pay items. HOWEVER, if you do not pay the full blue print balance, there it no “fee” or “penalty” (as in you’re credit won’t be harmed), but you will be charged interest from the first day of the billing cycle on those charges, instead of from the date of purchase. This results in a slightly higher interest payment if you fail to pay the full pay payment..
One last thought.. The motivation might seem to be this extra interest mentioned above, but could also include an incentive for card holders to “only pay” the full pay balance, rather than paying more.. This means that balances that are accruing interest are left untouched (except for the very small amount of the minimum payment that’s applied to them). I get this impression because it seems the cards where blue print is offered is on the “platinum” and the more premium cards (where the card holders are more likely to pay far more than the minimum payment anyway).
All that said, if you do use it, and you do pay the whole blueprint payment, it can work in your favor. I suggest paying the additional on top of the blueprint payment to pay down the rest of the balance that’s accruing interest as well.
John
[...] self awareness thing than an interest break, but it’s kind of neat nonetheless. Check out our inside look at Chase BluePrint for more [...]
Thanks for the explantion of Chase “full pay” promotion. Now,I understand. I’d read Chase’s flyer and it was useless. Glad I found your website.