In 2021, 47 million Americans missed the due date on their credit cards. People dread missing credit card payments, as they can trigger penalty APRs and late fees. The good thing is, many credit card issuers are flexible when it comes to missed payments.

Today, we’re going to cover what you can do if you’re looking to waive your late fee on your credit card.

Getting Your Late Fees Waived

How To Get Your Credit Card Late Fees Waived

Before you start stressing about getting your late fee on your credit card waived, you need to make sure that one showed up on your credit card statement in the first place. There’s a chance that they may have missed it.

Of course, you can be proactive about your late fee to make sure that it doesn’t show up by getting in contact with your credit card company to ask them to waive the late fee. If you’re already late by a day or two and you still don’t see a fee on your account, calling them might be a good idea.

In the case that you see a late fee pop up on your credit card statements, we recommend paying your bill right away. If you don’t, the credit card company will continue charging you interest, which could make it more difficult to pay your bill. This is how people end up in major debt with poor credit scores.

If you notice a fee, call your credit card company and speak with a customer service representative to explain your situation. During your call, you should highlight the positive aspects of your cardholder-ship. Tell them that you routinely make on-time payments and that this was simply a one-off situation.

If you’re polite and respectful to the representative, you can increase your chances that they will remove the fee. This is especially true if this is a one-off situation that hasn’t happened before.

You will more than likely receive a late fee waiver if you have a strong payment history. However, if you have a history of missing your monthly payments or consistently being late, that representative might be a bit less flexible. A credit card company will not make a habit of waiving a customer’s late fees. You should never expect them to waive more than one late fee throughout the course of your financial relationship either.

Final Thoughts – Preventing Late Fees In the Future

One of the best ways to prevent late fees is by setting up automatic payments so you never have to worry about missing the due date again.

Once your automatic payments are set up, you can turn your focus to building your credit with authorized user tradelines.

If you are looking for older, high-quality tradelines to help your credit score, Personal Tradelines can help you. To get an assessment on the tradelines that can best help you, make sure to get in contact with us here at Personal Tradelines. We look forward to helping you reach your financial goals as a creditworthy consumer.