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Time to Change Credit Cards

I forgot to pay off my credit card balance a few days ago. I do this roughly every 4 or 5 years. More annoying than paying some interest is that I seem to have to stop using the card for a couple of months to break the credit card interest cycle and get back in good standing. I need a useful reminder feature to help me avoid these mistakes.

My Tangerine Mastercard offers the following credit card email alerts:

  • Remaining Credit Less Than $100.00
  • Credit Card Payment Due
  • Credit Card Transactions Over $1,000.00
  • Money-Back Rewards Earned
  • Credit Card Payment Received
  • Money-Back Rewards Deposited

The alert I really want is “Your payment is due in a few business days, and we haven’t received anything yet.”

My wife tells me that her credit card offers this alert along with better cash-back rewards than I’m getting now. Maybe it’s time for me to dump my Tangerine credit card.

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Comments

  1. Sebastien BenoitOctober 16, 2019 at 8:46 AM

    Tangerine let's you set up an automated payment for the full statement balance:

    https://drive.google.com/a/gwcphoto.ca/file/d/1QDBflz3-w0_Ady8-tNGjj4p3jUwChedv/view?usp=drivesdk

    You can access that through the "Move Money" function.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Michael JamesOctober 16, 2019 at 9:33 AM

      @Sebastien Benoit: Thanks for the info. I was trying to optimize interest by keeping most of my cash at EQ bank and not so much in my Tangerine account. Unfortunately, Tangerine doesn't permit automatic full payments from a non-Tangerine account. But maybe making sure there's enough money to cover the credit card in my Tangerine account is a better solution that what I've been doing.

      Delete
  2. AnonymousOctober 16, 2019 at 4:35 PM

    Tangerine used to be a good offering. But over time they've dropped interest rates and watered down the credit card rewards and raised the foreign transaction fee. I haven't closed my accounts with them yet, but I use them less and less as time goes on. A pity.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Michael JamesOctober 16, 2019 at 4:52 PM

      @Anonymous: I agree. I'd like to see more fintech that doesn't get gobbled up by one of the big banks. I've been happy with EQ bank so far. Too bad they don't offer a way to get access to bank machines.

      Delete
  3. AnatoliNOctober 16, 2019 at 6:20 PM

    I have been guilty for forgetting to pay outstanding balance. So I devised a safety net which limits damage to interest alone: I have setup an automatic payment at due date of an estimated min payment.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Michael JamesOctober 16, 2019 at 6:26 PM

      @AnatoliN: That's certainly better than forgetting the payment entirely like I did.

      Delete
  4. RanOctober 18, 2019 at 8:43 AM

    Tangerine notifications are useless at best. I use Tangerine credit card as well, but only use it for regularly scheduled expenses - Transit, some bills, insurance payments, etc. This way I get 2% and can schedule regular payments to it. I have been burnt on this a few times in the past with different card companies. For adhoc expenses, I made a decision to not use credit cards from companies that don't provide sweep in from my chequeing account on that notes, Rogers offers a card that is close to Tangerine benefits and also offers automatc debit

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Michael JamesOctober 18, 2019 at 10:06 AM

      @Ran: I hadn't considered being strategic about which card I use in different contexts. It sounds like you've got that worked out.

      Delete

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