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Chase Blueprint offers an innovative range of tools to help cardholders better manage their credit card balances. Chase advertises the service as a way for cardholders to introduce greater transparency and control in their credit card spending, and offers up the new tools to encourage more “responsible borrowing” among credit cardholders.
Do the Blueprint features offer the benefits promised? It depends. For cardholders, who pay off their credit card balance each month, the Blueprint features offer little value. However, to the about one out of two Americans who do carry a balance, the Blueprint tools, if used wisely, can offer real benefits. Let’s take a closer look at the Blueprint features and the pros and cons of using the service.
Blueprint basically gives cardholders options for how they want to manage different parts of their credit card balances, as well as tools for tracking spending patterns. The Blueprint features are available to cardholders with the Chase Freedom, Chase Slate, Chase Sapphire, or Chase Ink business credit cards. The four Blueprint features are called Full Pay, Split It, Finish It, and Track It.
Full Pay. The ‘Full Pay’ feature essentially allows cardholders to use a portion of their credit card as a charge card. For example, cardholders using a Chase credit card for everyday expenditures like groceries or utilities can avoid paying interest on these purchases by designating them as ‘Full Pay’.
Normally, when a balance is carried forward on credit cards, interest accrues on all new charges immediately, since the 21-day grace period on new purchases only applies to cards where the balance is paid off in full each month. Under ‘Full Pay’, cardholders carrying a balance can avoid this dilemma. The total of the ‘Full Pay’ purchases will automatically be summed and become part of the minimum payment to be paid each month. (Of course, if cardholders don’t pay the ‘Full Pay’ minimum, interest will still accrue on those purchases.)
Purchase categories that can be designated as ‘Full Pay’ also include health clubs, laundry/dry cleaning, office/schools supplies, salon/beauty, transit expenses, purchases at wholesale and discount stores, department store and catalog purchases, restaurant expenses, drugstores, entertainment, convenience stores, and gas.
‘Full Pay’ is a great way to make sure that small, everyday purchases don’t accrue interest, and don’t’ inadvertently turn into mounting credit card debt over time. In addition, using ‘Full Pay’, can make it easier to live within one’s means. For cardholders having trouble paying the ‘Full Pay’ amount to cover monthly living expenses, ‘Full Pay’ can be a useful reminder to rein in spending to bring it in line with one’s income.
Split It. The ‘Split It’ feature of Blueprint enables cardholders to essentially use their credit card as an installment loan by setting up a payment plan for large purchases made with the card. Chase has calculators that establish the monthly payment needed to pay off the purchase within a time period specified by the cardholder.
‘Split It’ offers no interest saving, however, is intended to encourage more responsible borrowing by coaxing cardholders to pay off larger purchases within a set time period. Chase Blueprint does the math and makes it easy to see how much interest is accrued on specific purchases.
While it is always best to simply save money for big purchases or locate a lower-interest financing option, when this is not possible, using ‘Split It’ is definitely to be preferred above simply paying the minimum each month.
Finish It functions like ‘Split It,’ except that it applies to the entire outstanding balance. It is a simple calculator that offers cardholders a way to calculate how much they would have to pay each month if they wanted to pay off their credit card debt in, say, 24 months. Alternatively, the tool enables cardholders to determine when they would be out of debt at a set monthly payment level. After cardholders decide on a payment plan, Chase Blueprint automatically adjusts billing statements accordingly.
Track It offers enhanced statements and website reporting tools for financial management. ‘Track It’ is similar to financial management tools like Quicken, Mint, and Wesabe, which help cardholders understand their spending patterns and give a history of purchases. It automatically categorizes purchases and enables cardholders to set a budget for each category.
In sum, for the savvy consumer, Blueprint offers some useful and innovative tools for managing credit cards. When used proactively, Blueprint can be an aid to shift from a “minimum payment” mindset to one in which credit card charges for everyday spending are treated differently from longer-term purchases. Of course, how useful the service is will be up to how and how much it is used by cardholders. If Blueprint catches on, other card issuers are sure to add similar features.
