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Regarding Lynnae story. As I understand it, it is not about moving the date, it is about her paying before the beginning of the cycle, i.e. before she got the bill. If you always pay in full, this isn’t a problem: after you pay for one month, your balance is 0. At this point if you send the check for the current month purchases, the balance becomes negative (i.e. you have credit). When the next month purchases cycle, the purchase amount is added to the previous (negative) balance, and your next month bill is 0. I’ve done it once when I wanted to give some money to my poor relatives in another country and didn’t want to carry cash around or use ATMs several times; or pay interest on cash advance. I sent a large check to credit card company preemptively before leaving the US. Then when I went to a bank in this country, showed the credit card and asked for cash advance. This reset my CC balance to 0 (not counting new purchases), and I avoided paying interest on cash advance. My next bill simply included my new purchases, but no balance and no charges.

Lynnae, on the other hand, had a debt that she was repaying, so her balance was greater than 0. So when the bank got her check before the new cycle – i.e. amount due in their computers was still 0, but she still had balance – their computers “assumed” it was simply an additional payment on her total debt. Much like if you send an extra check to a mortgage company before they send you next month bill. Is it new month payment or additional principle? They don’t have a crystal ball to figure it out. I’d imagine it is all automated, so when the “amount due” is still shown as 0, the sent amount is deducted from the total debt, but this doesn’t reduce the next month bill.
The easiest way to avoid this problem as well as that with due date changes is to use automatic payment. You still should pay attention to bills and know when your due date is this month. This way the credit card will always deduct the full amount (my case) or minimum payment (Lynnae case) on the due date. Then, Lynnae could send additional payments herself, but she’d be guaranteed never to miss a payment.

[...] Madison posted early again (how early does she get up??  I am so not a morning person!) with her counterpoints to the dirty little games credit card companies play, and I had to ask the question: Can You REALLY Win with Credit Cards? because I honestly [...]

[...] madison @ my dollar plan (pro) and ana @ debt-free revolution (anti)  are having a credit card debate, check out these salvos and weigh in yourself [...]

So if we are okay on our financial basics, like Madison says, then the cc becomes an useful tool.

Otherwise, it just drives us deeper into a mess.

I have one card, and always pay the balance each blling cycle.

But arbing and all that….I am not cut out for that, I think.

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Other than that I’m with you all the way. I use my favorite card for everything I can and even let trusted people run large purchases through it to get more Aeroplan points. I haven’t carried a balance since I overcame the slow periods at the start of my freelancing business so I think the points I end up getting will justify the low annual fee.