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Friday, May 24th 2013
Credit Card Glossary

Credit Card Glossary: Terms and Definitions

Confused by credit card terms? CreditCards.com's glossary of credit card definitions will help. From account holder to Regulation Z, we have defined the most-common and most-confusing credit card terms.
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Cash advance
A cash advance is a cash loan from a credit card, using an ATM, a bank withdrawal or "convenience" checks. Credit card cash advances have many disadvantages for consumers. Generally, you cannot take a cash advance for the full amount of your available credit. The interest rate on cash advances is often significantly higher than it is on purchases or balance transfers. If you carry balancnes with both high-interest cash advances and low-interest purchases on the same card, it is current industry practice to apply payments to the low-rate balance first, increasing total interest rate costs. A transaction fee, which is a percentage of the cash advance, is usually charged. There is typically no grace period for cash advances.

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