What to know about credit card agreements

Quick insights

• Your credit card’s cardmember agreement covers the “fine print,” including terms and conditions.
• Cardmember agreements also cover details like your card’s annual percentage rate (APR), billing date, closing date, grace period and more.
• Credit card issuers generally send card agreements via mail; you can also typically request an additional copy or find an online version if necessary.

If you have just received your new credit card in the mail, it’s understandable if you want to start using it right away. However, the cardmember agreement that accompanies the card—particularly the terms and conditions—are of vital importance, as they explain the finer points of card usage. These details may seem a tad intimidating to digest at first, but they are essential to understanding your cardmember contract. These details include the APR, billing cycles, fees, credit limits and more.

Below we’ll focus on some of the more important aspects of your cardmember agreement and why the details matter. Read on for a list of some important aspects of your cardmember agreement:

The basics of cardmember agreements

Reviewing your cardmember agreement can help you understand the basic facts about your credit card, so you can avoid costly fees, understand what you’re agreeing to and use your card with confidence. Items that your cardmember agreement will detail include the following:

• The APR (introductory and regular interest rates), including an explanation as to how the APR is calculated for your card.
• Your billing date, closing date and any applicable grace period.
• Fees issued for late payments and other consequences such as penalty APRs, which may be applied when payments are missed.
• Balance transfer information, if your card is eligible for a balance transfer or came with a balance transfer offer.
• Other information applicable to your specific card.

Low APR and other introductory offers in your cardmember agreement

Understanding any introductory or low APR rate offer you may receive can be especially important for making big purchases such as home appliances, furniture or booking vacations with the card. It can also be important for planning a balance transfer to pay attention to any low introductory offer that may be available to you.

Read on to find out when you can expect to receive your cardmember agreement and federal laws that are designed to make the fine print more comprehensible for you, the consumer.

Where can you find the fine print in your credit card agreement?

Your credit card agreement should arrive in the mail, usually in the same envelope as your card. If you did not receive the agreement or somehow it was lost in the mail, the card issuer must make it available to you upon request by sending you a copy or providing online access to it.

For Chase customers, if you accidentally misplace the paper copy of your agreement, you can download a copy at Chase.com or call the number on the back of your card to request a copy be mailed to you.

Federal regulations have provisions requiring the language of the terms and conditions to be clear and straightforward, with the APR and any annual fee disclosed in a way consumers can readily understand. To help consumers better understand their cardmember agreements, the APR must be prominently listed in a table at or near the top of the document. This means cardmember agreements are required to print the APR in a table that the customer can easily read.

Where to find your APR on the cardmember agreement

The table in which you can find your APR and fees at a glance is known as a Schumer Box. In general, the Schumer Box will be prominently featured near the top of the first page or sometimes on the second page of the cardmember agreement. The Schumer Box is named for then New York Congressman and later U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, who mandated it in legislation he co-sponsored in 1988.

Additional important parts of your credit card agreement

Along with the APR, you should also see a description of how the APR gets calculated by the card issuer. Some additional information to look out for in the agreement include:

• APR on any cash advances you may take from an ATM or bank branch using your card.
• Foreign transaction fees, if applicable, in case you use your credit card while outside the U.S.—some student and travel-oriented credit cards do not charge this type of fee.
• How and under what conditions the card issuer may send you new credit card offers or offer to upgrade your card.

Chase resources on credit card agreements

Visit our credit card glossary to learn more about what certain terms and phrases in your cardmember agreement mean. Additionally, Chase Credit Journey^® can help you understand the factors affecting your credit score and monitor it for free. You could also enroll in a free personalized action plan provided by Experian™ to help improve your score and financial literacy.