Reader and frequent contributor curmudgeon wrote it to let us know about something Chase sometimes does called ‘Float Pay’. They opened a new Chase Ink card, reached the credit limit, paid the card off in full but the card wasn’t showing any available credit limit. When Chase was contacted by curmudgeon they were told this was due to “Float Pay”:
Dear Thank you for contacting us regarding your Chase Ink Business Cash® Card. I will be more than happy to review your inquiry regarding a Float Pay. I understand how important this is. <name>, your payment of $xxxx.xx made on August 20, 2025 was held from the available credit to allow time for the payment to clear your bank account. The payment amount will show as effective the day it was received and will be applied to your available credit for immediate use after today, August 26, 2025. Float Pay applies a payment to your account, but it doesn’t release a corresponding amount of available credit until we confirm there are sufficient funds to cover the payment. Here’s more information about Float Pay: – A payment is applied to your account balance as of the day of receipt, but it doesn’t instantly reflect in the account’s available credit. – Interest charges stop accruing for the payment amount. – Funds are released within 7 days. – There are a number of reasons a payment can be floated – some are complex and proprietary. – Customers cannot opt out of Float Pay. We’re sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused. If you have other questions about Float Pay, please call us anytime at the number on the back of your card; we accept operator relay calls. We appreciate you being a Chase customer. Thank you
From my research this doesn’t seem to be limited to new cardholders, but existing cardholders as well when the spend is higher than previous. It also doesn’t seem to happen if it’s an internal Chase transfer. Not a huge deal, just thought it was somewhat interesting.
This happened to me with Bank of America. They applied my payment of $12,411 immediately, but didn’t update my available credit for 10 business days. I called them and the CSR said that I was the second caller that day with that same issue, but she was not familiar with it previously.
I’ve had similar when I was maxed out on an Ink and made a payment before the statement closing date. Is mostly to prevent churning and Chase left holding the bag.
Chase is slow. I’m paying my Prime Visa balance from Chase checking, and sometimes it took 2 business days.
Same happened to me with PayPal credit card (from Synchrony bank). Payed 8k or so, payment went through but it took about a week for the available credit to get renewed.
This happened to me with an Ink last year that only had like a 3k credit limit, they didn’t explain it to me this day but it took like 3-4 days longer for the payment to finally post than it would normally have. It made me miss out on a big purchase I was going to place on it to hit the SUB faster.
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Exact same thing happened to me too with a new Ink
I had a form of this with synchrony bank.
The account was on a 24 month deferred interest promo. Months 1-22 minimum payments were made. Sometime during month 23 the entire remaining balance paid off ($4 or $5K). Payment was “pushed” to them – no way I trust synchrony with my bank account info.
Day after it showed paid off. Next day the payment went into a holding state for 3 or 4 business days. They couldn’t explain it other than something along the lines of fraud prevention because this amount was significantly larger than any previous payment – all payments came from the same bank and account.
Suffice to say, few months later I closed the card entirely and will likely never open another account with them.
Can confirm it happens even with long time card holders. Opened the prime visa and had this 7 day delay. I’ve had chase cards for over 7 years but I did max it out churning so that coulda caused it. only happend for the first cycle and after that the hold was dropped
visa signature does not have preset limits
Pay account more frequently
why would a bank trust that your payment will clear? this seems very normal to me and if anything I’m surprised when they update my balance right away..
I assume it’s less about the payment clearing and more about how long it takes to clear. I suspect the time they wait for the payment to clear is substantially longer that what it actually takes. This is where the term “float” comes into play