All About Credit Cards

Re-age? What does that mean? Redo first grade? Go through puberty again? No no, it refers to your credit card account, (naturally). Let’s look at some details.

Wow, that new plasma TV looks great in your living room. The colors! The details! Everything is wonderful - until you get your bill and find out that your expenses for the month have far exceeded what you can afford at this point. You ultimately incur late fees and interest on this payment. And, of course, more bills and expenses come the next month, so how much longer can you do this?

When situations like the above take place, one option that credit card holders have is to “re-age” their account. This means that the account reverts back to a status when there were no late fees and your account status was “current” rather than “delinquent”. Had a lower interest rate? You’ll be there, as well.

How does this happen? You need to strike a deal with your credit card rep and ask them to re-age. You can only do it once a year, and they need some sort of agreement that this was just a fluke and that you’ll continue with on-time payments (they don’t have to be in full). Once you get a verbal OK from them, ask for something in writing, in case there is a computer fowl up of your account and the re-aging accidentally gets forgotten.

Is this always the best route? For the most part, yes. Getting your account back in good standing will assist you with your credit and also with getting the best APR. However, if you’ve only missed one payment and then are back on track, it probably isn’t worth re-aging. Since you can only do it every 12 months, it’s better when you’ve got multiple months of late fees that would otherwise kick up your interest rate and knock down your credit score.