Online Credit Card Purchases – Transaction Date and Post Date

[Originally posted on 3/25/14; reposted and updated 12/31/15]

Quarterly Categories

We’re all familiar with quarterly categories on credit cards. Often, things like gas, groceries Amazon and other popular categories earn 5x rewards on the Chase Freedom card, the Discover IT card, the Citi Dividend card, and the US Bank Cash+ card.

In December 2014, I was wondering what would happen if I made an online purchase on December 31 to try to take advantage of a quarterly category. Logically, I assumed that it would not be able trigger the 5x bonus since the charge would not post for a day or two, which would be past the eligible time-frame. I was a little thrown off because I saw lots of blogs (including ours) mention that it’s now the last time to take advantage of the 5x Amazon with Chase Freedom and the 5x online purchases with Discover.

I chatted with a Discover rep, and she confirmed that online purchases made on the last day of December would likely not count for 5x rewards.

In an effort to see actual results, I tested it out and bought two physical $10 Amazon gift cards on December 31, one with my Freedom card and another with my Discover card. Both would have earned 5x on the purchase as per the quarterly category, but neither charge posted on December 31. The Chase charge posted on 1/2, the Discover charge posted on 1/1 and neither earned 5x rewards. I followed up with Chase and Discover, and both replied that since the charge posted in January it isn’t eligible for the bonus rewards.

Same thing happened with a $10 gift card ordered from Kmart on 12/31. The charge posted to my Discover statement as 1/3 and no bonus rewards were earned. (More data points below.)

Amex Offers

This same question comes up more often for me in regard to Amex Offers. These offers come with time limitations, and many of them can be used online. Can you shoot off an order on the last day? The terms on all Amex Offers clearly warn not to do this (emphasis mine):

Statement credit will appear on your billing statement within 90 days after xx/xx/xx, provided that American Express receives information from the merchant about your qualifying purchase. Note that American Express may not receive information about your qualifying purchase from merchant until all items from your qualifying purchase have been provided/shipped by merchant.

Always try to give an extra few days for the item to ship so that there won’t be a loss of the Amex Offer credit.

Credit Card Signup Bonuses

Similarly, when signing up for a new credit card, we often need to spend a certain amount of money within a certain timeframe. These purchases also need to post to the account before the end-date and can be problematic when made on the final few days before of the deadline.

Here’s a quote from the terms of a random AmEx card signup bonus:

…purchases may fall outside of the 3 month period in some cases, such as a delay in merchants submitting transactions to us or if the purchase date differs from the date you made the transaction. (For example, if you buy goods online, the purchase date may be the date the goods are shipped).

Again, we need to always be careful to meet all minimum spending a few days in advance to be sure that there’s no issue with the charge posting in time, particularly in the case of online orders.

In-Store Purchases

For in-store purchases, the purchase date should always be the date that counts. Though the charge won’t post completely to the account for a couple of days, it should calculate based on the transaction date both for Amex Offers and for quarterly categories. Chase actually mentions “transaction date” and “post date” but rewards would be calculated using the transaction date. [This has been confirmed by Chase.]

chase target post date

Citi and Barclay also mention the two dates, in a less conspicuous way, the transaction date being the main one. Amex doesn’t mention the post date at all in your online transaction history, just the transaction date. In any case, all issuers consider the ‘real’ date to be the transaction date for in-store purchases.

There have been recorded flukes when this did not happen, but typically it will always go with the transaction date, and you should be able to get manual credit for the odd case that turns out differently.

Online Purchases

Online purchases are more tricky since the retailer may not process the charge completely (or at all) on the transaction date. They may wait for the shipping date or something else.

Sometimes, we see a $1 authorization at the time of purchase, sometimes we see a pending charge for the full amount, and sometimes we see nothing.

Logically, if you see the full amount as pending in your online login, that means that the retailer already ‘swiped’ your card and the transaction would seemingly be the same as the card swiped in-store.

However, this does not appear to be accurate.

To give one example: when ordering from Staple.com, you’ll usually see a $1 authorization and – within minutes – the full charge amount show up on your credit card. Yet the post date on your credit card statement will show as a day or two later.

Apparently, online orders have three steps (besides the $1 authorization):

  • the original hold on the credit card
  • the retailer officially puts the charge through
  • it posts as a completed charge

Presumably, it’s step #2 that counts as the transaction date, not step #3 and not step #1. It’s possible that this varies by the retailer, but this is my best guess for how it works in general.

On a practical note, this means that you always need to give a few extra days for charges to process when doing online orders, both with regards to quarterly categories and for Amex Offers as well.

Examples

I did some experimenting with the transaction-date/post-date by tracking my purchases at various online retailers. Here’s a sampling of what I found. (Note that many of my examples were with gift cards, simply because that’s the bulk of items that I order online. I assume we’d see similar results with ordinary goods.)

  • Amazon.com Do an instant gift card reload on 12/31/15 at 19:21 PST. Shows on Chase statement as 1/1/16 purchase date and 1/3/16 post date. Reported by a friend.
  • Staples.com Order e-gift card on 1/20. Receive gift card on 1/21. Shows on Amex statement as 1/21.
  • Staples.com Order e-gift card on 1/25. Receive gift card on 1/27. Shows on Amex statement as 1/27.
  • Walmart.com Order physical gift card on 11/29. Ships 11/30. Shows on Amex as 11/29.
  • Walmart.com Order physical gift card on 11/29. Ships 11/30. Shows on Amex as 11/30 (x2).
  • Bestbuy.com Order physical gift card on 11/25. Ships on 11/26. Shows on Amex as 11/26.
  • Kmart.com Order car charger on 11/20. Ships on 11/22. Shows on Discover as 11/20.
  • Kmart.com Order physical gift card on 12/31. Ships ? Shows on Discover as 1/3.
  • Amazon.com Order Whole Foods physical gift card on 12/16. Ships on 12/17. Shows on Discover as 12/16.
  • Amazon.com Order physical Amazon gift card on 12/31. Ships ? Shows on Discover as 1/1.
  • Amazon.com Order physical Amazon gift card on 12/31. Ships ? Shows on Chase as 1/2.
  • eBay.com Order Sears physical gift card from GiftCardMall on 12/12. Ships on 12/16. Shows on Discover as 12/12.
  • Target.com Order physical gift card on 11/29. Ships 12/8. Shows on Discover as 12/10.
  • Zappos.com Order physical gift card on 12/8. Ships on 12/10. Shows on Amex as 12/8.
  • Jcrew.com Order physical gift card on 11/21. Ships 11/24. Shows on Amex as 11/25.
  • Allenedmonds.com Order physical gift card on 12/24. Ships on 12/27. Shows on Amex as 12/27.

As you can see, many online retailers process the charge on the purchase date and many process the charge on the ship date. With target.com and jcrew.com we even saw them process it after the ship date. Odd indeed. (I’ll just add that the target.com data point is slightly weak since this was part of the discounted gift cards they offered on Cyber Monday, and everyone’s orders were delayed beyond what was supposed to have been. It’s possible this is an anomaly.)

With Walmart, Amazon and Kmart I actually had conflicting experiences, possibly dependent on what time of day the purchase was made or maybe on other factors. In the case of Amazon and Kmart, the conflict is from my December 31 purchases; possibly over New Years these things process slower.

In any case, I think it’s enough to show that it’s unreliable to assume any given retailer will process the transaction in any particular manner and we always need to err on the side of caution and give an extra few days. If it’s the last moment, we’d have to decide if it’s worth taking the chance, depending on the circumstance.

Related: Reminder: Give Yourself Extra Time for Online Purchases to Post

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Gerry
Gerry (@guest_1358166)
April 4, 2022 06:26

I used my chase freedom on 3/31/22 at my local grocery store to purchase a $500 vanilla vgc. Transaction posted 4/3/22 and 5% reward points are pending.

hedaway
hedaway (@guest_792256)
August 1, 2019 12:19

I made some purchases on the last for AMEX cc signup bonus. Lol, now I feel like they won’t give me the bonus because the charges might not post for days. 1500$ gone to waste I guess. feeling dumb.

Adrienne K
Adrienne K (@guest_656065)
October 11, 2018 20:38

I just had this “posting” fraud happen to me with Discover. I call it fraud, because the date I enter my credit card number to the vendor, is obviously the date the item was bought, regardless of any microscopic print Discover has authored to cheat people out of the rewards that they themselves set the quarterly dates for. Their quarter for warehouse clubs spanned Jan1-Mar31. I bought $1000 on Costco.com on Mar30 and low and behold as my year for doubling was coming to an end, and I was checking the total rewards I was being awarded, I noticed I was missing the $50 from that Costco buy for that quarter. When I checked the statement, Costco had not “POSTED” until Apr6th. Plus all merchandise charges had posting and transaction dates that were identical!!!! How could that be??? Every merchant does not transact and post the same day! There’s where the fraud is being perpetrated…untrue transaction dates, or transaction dates that are simply not being accurately collected or required!!!! That’s simply a lie, a fraud. What is Discover trying to pull. Transaction dates should be the date I laid down my card, but if they are just copying the posting date as the transaction date then they can say there’s no evidence that it was bought earlier during the qualifying period. Why are we letting them get away with this? I fought hours with Discover to reverse this. They gave me back only a portion of the reward, since my years would happen in just a couple of days, and their adjustment wouldn’t happen for 2 billing periods!

paz
paz (@guest_429859)
June 28, 2017 22:58

So my in-store VGC purchases for the Citi Dividend bonus should qualify, even though the transactions from two days ago remain pending tonight?

katye
katye (@guest_271752)
June 30, 2016 00:17

Regarding the purchase vs post date. I used my Staples.com $25 off $100 to buy Office Depots gift card.
Purchase date: 6/19 morning
Post date: 6/21 (past offer date of 6/19)
$25 Credit post date: 6/25.
However, even though the credit post date appear as 6/25, it didn’t appear until a few days later on 6/29. I notice this as I have been checking daily.

I knew I was cutting it close so I am happy to get the credit.

katye
katye (@guest_271753)
June 30, 2016 00:19

The above was related to AMEX offer.

Amy B.
Amy B. (@guest_216595)
January 12, 2016 04:03

I purchased a last-minute Amazon gift card not this past Christmas but the previous Christmas when Chase had a promotion running and successfully argued for the reward on the purchase when it did not post automatically. I can’t be 100% certain without looking back at the details, but I believe the post date fell just outside of the percentage quarter while the transaction date did not.

Calvin
Calvin (@guest_213153)
January 1, 2016 05:59

I’ve looked at the transactions on my discover credit card the last six months and I’ve noticed that online orders processed with paypal almost always have transaction dates on the same date as order. I had one exception (Gilt) where the transaction was posted when the order was shipped.

Can anyone add data points to my paypal almost always post on same day theory?

ES
ES (@guest_213079)
December 31, 2015 21:37

Chase Freedom doesn’t have 5X grocery until Apr – June.

Both the Freedom and Discover cards are Gas and Ground Transportation starting tomorrow.

Happy New Year!

Cowboyguy
Cowboyguy (@guest_213067)
December 31, 2015 20:01

Chuck/Others,

I didn’t get the purpose of things like Freedom 5% grocery or similar offers, for people who have cards like Amex Blue Cash that give almost unlimited 5% on grocery year around. Why would anyone do that?

tbradnc
tbradnc (@guest_213043)
December 31, 2015 17:58

I went through my Amex offers today and used a few expiring today (12/31). They all triggered the offer when I placed the orders, no problem.

will s
will s (@guest_213064)
December 31, 2015 19:54

Was thinking the same thing, esp. to do a few gift cards via amazon…. (which would have “shipped” electronically within hours) but then amazon’s gc offerings fizzled today. (and the few they had were badly saturating the re-sale market)

ps to Chuck, how about saving this essay and re-posting next year on Christmas — to give a bit more timely warning/reminder. As is, no doubt you saved many from mistakes last day. Next year, remind us to plan ahead. (thanks)

foobar
foobar (@guest_334311)
January 5, 2017 10:18

Data point:

I received the $50 off $250+ Hilton offer (expiring Dec. 31, 2016) on my Amex EDP. I stayed one night (Dec. 30-31) at a qualifying rate.

The charge went pending on Dec. 30, and I received the triggered Amex offer email that day. However, the charge finally posted on Jan. 1, 2017 (one day after the offer expired).

Despite that, the offer credit has just posted to my account as of Jan. 4.

Jake
Jake (@guest_368228)
March 10, 2017 21:40

I should have posted about this earlier, but better late than never. I had something unexpected happen with the Staples Amex Offer a couple of months ago. For reference the offer expired on December 31, and here’s what happened:

* December 28 – I placed an order with Staples and immediately received the “You just used your Amex Offer” email.
* December 30 – I received an email from Staples that my order was delayed, and didn’t realize that this would affect the date that they would charge my card.
* January 4 – My Staples order was shipped.
* January 6 – The charge posted to my Amex card with post date January 6, transaction date January 4. At this point I realized that I’d screwed up and wouldn’t be receiving the Amex Offer.
* January 9 – The Amex Offer posts anyway, even though the transaction date was past the expiration date of the offer.

Has anyone else experienced something like this? I’m wondering if Amex gave me the offer anyway because of the temporary authorization on Dec. 28, but who knows.