Questions on credit card annual fee.

[mike0430]

Hi All,

I currently have a st george qantas signature credit card, I got this card with my home loan package so its 0 annual fee. I am refinancing to CBA now, I wonder if st george will charge me annual fee on credit card immediately? I paid st george's home loan package annual fee in Feb this year. Thank you.

 

[lameyofth]

Annual fees are almost always due with the first statement, unless the terms specifically state something like "0$ annual fee for the first year, then $__ every anniversary thereafter". This is precisely to prevent someone from getting a sign up bonus and then cancelling the card without paying for it.

192.168.1.1​

 

[Cynicor]

Not sure that answers the question. I don’t have an answer either, but I guess it will come down to how they rebate the card fee behind the scenes. I suspect your fee won’t be due until the card anniversary date.

 

[Lynda2475]

When you have a home loan package St George put a flag/code on your credit card so their processes know to waive the annual fee.

Each year on the anniversary of when you opened the credit card (this could be same date as your mortgage or you may have had the card before the mortgage) a process is run it if it finds the code it checked to see the same customer number also till has an eligible HL product.

When you pay off/clear the HL or move your HL to another bank you are no longer eligible for the free card, so on the anniversary this should be picked up, the waiver code/flag removed and you should see the charge on the next CC statement.

Of course depending on the age of the package there could always be a glitch and you may get lucky. The banks coding isnt always perfect.

AFAIK the only waiver flag/code that remains for life of the product is the staff flag (even if you quit). For example I have a Westpac (St George's parent company) CC which was originally free because of my mortgage; but when I became staff they removed the HL package flag and added the staff one. My HL is closed yet my CC remains annual fee free despite quitting years ago provided i keep the account open.