Chase Blueprint Offers Online Money Management Tools Free for Select Chase Credit Cards
Sep 23rd, 2009 | By Rob | Category: Credit Cards
A new online tool from Chase is garnering a fair amount of media attention recently. Known as Blueprint, it is part of a broad media campaign hoping to convince you that J.P. Morgan Chase wants to help you manage your finances (as well as rack up interest rate and fee charges!).
Chase Blueprint offers certain cardholders the ability to calculate the amount of money that they will save by paying more than the minimum payment each month. After you tell Chase how quickly you would like to pay off the debt, it tells you how much you should pay monthly in order to reach your goal.
In my view, the more helpful part of Chase Blueprint is the section which allows you to avoid paying interest on certain categories of purchases. As I understand it, you can tell chase that you want to pay off all of your purchases at gas stations and grocery stores every month, while making just the minimum payment on all other purchases. By doing this, you can avoid making interest payments on the money that you charged at gas stations and grocery stores even though you do not pay off the balance on the credit card each month.
In effect, this tool on Chase Blueprint allows you to avoid monthly interest rate charges on select categories of purchases that you intend to pay off every month without the hassle of opening up a second credit card for these purchases.
While I’m not a big fan of the glorified payment calculator which seems to be garnering most of the attention in the news stories that I saw, I actually like the idea behind the portion of Chase Blueprint known as “Full Pay.” I don’t particularly care whether Chase Blueprint was introduced in order to deflect some of the negative media attention that happened during the Congressional debate over the new credit card rules, or a more self-interested attempt to capture market share. It seems like a small step in the right direction - and I welcome it. I just hope that there isn’t any fine print that negates this benefit.
You can read more about the new tools and sign up on the website for Chase Blueprint. Chase Blueprint is available on Chase Slate, Chase Freedom, Chase Sapphire, Chase Platinum, and Chase Ink credit cards. If you have questions about whether your card qualifies, Chase also says you can call the number on the back of your credit card and ask.
