How to calculate the grace period for a Sberbank card?

The grace period, or as it is also called interest-free, is 50 days that are allotted to the borrower for purchases with payment by their credit card and further repayment of the debt. In this case, there is no need to pay interest under the contract.

There are also limits here: the first is a limited amount of funds, because you can only buy for an amount within the credit limit.

The second restriction concerns the fact that you cannot cash out funds from the card, otherwise the interest-free period will be reset to zero, and the client in any case will have to pay a commission and interest. We will talk about how not to pay interest on a Sberbank credit card and what you need to know for this.

How to do the calculation correctly?

To do this, we will arrange a small debriefing of the flights, because the loan agreement contains a lot of terms that the client may not always interpret correctly. So, as a rule, beginners who have not yet understood the essence of the scheme and have just concluded an agreement are faced with the problem of settlements.

This is because out of the promised 50 days on all Sberbank credit cards, it will not be possible to make purchases throughout the entire period. Only 30 days are allotted for this, and 20 is left to pay off the formed debt.

The reporting period is the time when the customer is allowed to make purchases within the credit limit. This is 30 days, on the last of which a card statement will be generated, which will be sent to the borrower.

The payment period is the remaining 20 days, within which the payment can be made. In total, they give 50 days, about which so much has already been said in the advertisement. To understand how to calculate the grace period for the Sberbank card, let's consider the tasks.

A simple example

If we assume that the date for generating the card statement is April 1, then 50 days of the grace period ends on May 21. If you pay off the debt before that date, the borrower will not have to pay interest.

In a situation when a person makes the first purchase on April 28 in the amount of 10 thousand rubles, then the duration of his grace period will be only 23 days.

If the second purchase with a card in the amount of 5 thousand is made on May 1, its grace period will be shortened by a day and will be exactly 20 days. This example shows that if the borrower has time to pay off on time, then with an interest rate of 25.9%, he will be able to save 234 rubles.

The point is that the billing period can never be less than 20 days. As a result, the earlier you make a purchase, the more days it will pay off, and the more you delay shopping, the fewer days there will be to pay off (but never less than 20).

For comparison, if you pay for a purchase on April 6 with a card, the duration of the interest-free period is already as much as 45 days, although the final maturity date has not changed and still falls on May 21.

A person can pay off a debt on any day of the calendar (throughout April in our example), not reaching the last day when it will still be possible to pay off without interest.

The nuances of using plastic

If you deposit more on the card than was spent, the client gets the opportunity to make purchases using his own funds. As soon as the payment is made, the credit limit is renewed again and will be valid for the next month. Each client-holder of a credit card receives an SMS message, which contains:

the amount of total debt that is formed for the reporting month;
the amount of the mandatory payment that will need to be made in any case, even if the client does not plan to meet the interest-free period;
the date until which you need to deposit funds.

If the SMS does not come, you can find out the date and amount of the payment in your personal account of the Sberbank Online system.

Analysis of popular myths regarding the grace period

We have already touched on the first myth. Customers believe they have 50 days to maturity from the date of purchase anyway. But as we have already discussed above, the earlier the purchase, the longer it takes to pay off, and vice versa - the later you pay for something with a card, the fewer days will be allotted for depositing what was spent.

In practice, after 30 days, a report on spending will be generated, the remaining 20 allow you to pay without the need to pay interest. Please note that the date of generation of the statement is not tied to the beginning of the month, but depends on the date of plastic activation. Therefore, adhere to the following scheme for using a credit card:

a month after activating plastic, make purchases and pay for services;
wait a month and get a statement 30 days in advance;
You have 20 days for payment. We are talking about 50 days of an interest-free period only if the goods were paid for in the first days after the activation of the plastic. The closer to the end of the month, the shorter the billing period becomes, until it reaches a minimum of 20 days.

The second myth is how you can allegedly use a grace period with a Sberbank card - if you cash out the money from your account and then have time to return it before the end of the interest-free period, you will not have to pay interest under the agreement. This is not true.

Cashing out money even through the native ATMs of the network leads to a write-off of a commission in the amount of 3% of the transaction amount and cancels the grace period.

Outcome

Even if for some reason you did not meet the deadline, you should not panic. In the end, plastic cards are designed for you to be able to pay the minimum mandatory contribution and thus you will be bypassed by fines and late fees.

You can replenish the card in a number of ways, ranging from simple depositing money through a terminal or bank cash desk, ending with performing an operation remotely through your personal account, by sending a short USSD command, or, alternatively, an SMS message to 900.