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Does Your Credit Card Allow You To Make A Payment With A Zero Balance?

racecar
  |     |   616 posts since 2014

Years ago the credit cards I still use would allow you to make a payment even if you had a zero balance (making a payment before you owed anything). But most online banking softwares now block the cardholder from doing so, and most places have now stopped allowing cardholders to do this.

I'm just curious if anyone's CC still allows them to make a payment if their balance is zero? (For instance, say you have a $0 balance but buy something for $2,000 on your card today. Could you then "pay it off" with a $0 balance before you actually make the purchase, or immediately afterwards while it's still only an authorization but hasn't posted yet?)

Back in the day when I used to travel overseas a lot (and before ATMs overseas were everywhere) if I had to take a cash advance in a foreign currency from my CC at a bank somewhere, I'd never get charged a cash advance fee (let alone any interest) from the card because it was already paid off before I left. Likewise, if the CC was pre-paid off then even if I was gone for a few months I wouldn't have to worry about interest when I wasn't home to receive and pay the bills, because it was already paid off.

I recently put a large charge on my CC to do an estimated tax payment, and though it's still 2 weeks before the statement closing date, I wanted to pay it off right away. But I can no longer do that -- not until it posts.

The cards I use the most are from a large regional CU, and NavyFed. Both used to let the cardholder pre-pay their CC. But now, both their online softwares won't allow any payment amount more than the current "balance due." CSRs at the large regional CU CAN override that and make a pre-payment if you call them or go to a branch and they do it themselves. But NavyFed (like most) now don't allow it at all, not online, not with a phone CSR, nor in the branch.

I realize today there's not as much of a reason to want to do this as there once was, but it just got me wondering... does anyone's CC still let them make a payment online if their current-due balance is zero? I guess I'm just one of those people who like to pay off things immediately, be done with it, and move on.

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darkdreamer4u
  |     |   344 posts since 2010
If you send a payment (electronic or check) via billpay from your checking acct., I'm sure most if not all CC's will take it and credit it to your CC acct. You may have a negative balance for a while until you make charges. If no charges, after a few statement cycles they usually send you a check to bring your balance back to zero - not sure why they do that, maybe there is a law or regulation to that effect.
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racecar
  |     |   616 posts since 2014
It sounds like sending payment via billpay or check might force a pre-payment; that might be an option before, say, a vacation, but not to have the credit available right away, at least with a paper check (due to the delay in mailing and processing; billpay might work).

I remember NavyFed very much used to allow it (and would tell its members that if there was still a credit balance on the card after 3 months it would automatically be put back to your savings) but no longer. One CU can override it if I asked them to (only with their internal system) but Navy's system won't allow anyone to do it. Dep, maybe if you called US Bank their internal system might allow it? Well, at least the large charge posted after a couple days, thankfully it wasn't over a weekend too, but it would still be nice to be able to pay at the same time I make a large charge to get it over and done with. I guess those days are behind us.
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Maestro
  |     |   42 posts since 2023
So I recently used bill pay to overpay my 2% card in anticipation of a couple of large auto-pays coming up. The FI allows a 5% over payment based off of the current statement balance but I was at 11% over. The payment went through and showed a credit balance on my next statement date, so using a bill pay definitely worked. The auto-pays came due and zeroed out the over payment a week later.

However, my credit score dropped 5 points noting: "Your fico score was impacted because you are not currently demonstrating active revolving credit". As many do, I pay the statement balances off each month, having a balance of $0 or less trips a Fico algorithm that sees you as not using your revolving credit. The other ding(s) I have to my credit score are "No recent installment loans" and something along the line of "non-meaningful mortgage payment".
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Ally6770
  |     |   4,290 posts since 2010
I have paid off a pending charge when I charge my house insurance. I do not
like huge balances even though they debit my checking account on the due date to pay the balance off.
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deplorable_1
  |     |   1 posts since 2020
Why not? It's a 0% interest free loan until the due date. Unless for some reason you need to boost your credit score real fast. I make about 5% on my cash right up until the due date. I don't pay bills from a 0% checking account though.
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Rickny
  |     |   1,296 posts since 2017
Keep funds to pay for large bills (Mortgage, Charge bills etc.) in my Primis checking account that's paying 4.4%.

I pay my bills and carry no intrest charges. Never had a negative impact on my credit rating. When I have large charge card bills sometimes my usage percentage goes up and and that hits my credit score.
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