Whoa!
Here we are, just getting our Christmastime bills. What should we notice on our Costco American Express bill but that the closing date has magically advanced from the usual 20th of the month to December 21.
Isn’t that cute?
If you are one of the retrograde frugalists, like me, who budgets a specific amount per billing cycle for charge card purchases, you might have you carefully waited until the day after your billing cycle customarily closes to go out and rack up a bunch of Christmas presents, planning to pay for them out of your January income. In that event, your gift from American Express would be a big fat finance charge.
Luckily, the last charge I made in the November-December cycle came on the 17th. I was under the weather around the 20th and 21st and so delayed shopping for last-minute presents until the 23rd and 24th.
If I had felt better, I almost certainly would have gone out on the 21st, thinking the billing cycle closed on the 20th. And I would have been screwed, screwed, ge-screwed, because that would have pushed me way over budget. I couldn’t have paid my bill in full this month.
Sumbitch.
Credit card companies are not your friends.
(Just in case you hadn’t noticed that yet…)
😯
Well, it’s funny you should say that credit card companies are not your friend.
My husband said the same last week, but I highlighted that actually they are my friend, and your friend too, as they offer you a FULL MONTH OF FREE CASH each week.
Plus their card offer us loads of points for free flights. I have been to my heavenly Sta Barbara in CA several times, thanks to my lovely credit card friends, paid off each month, in time, in full.
Like that perspective?!
Sure. I pay mine off, too, and I get a kickback from my card, too. But that’s not the point.
The point is, AMEX changed its terms without notice (by silently changing the closing date of the billing cycle). Had I not been sick on the day I would normally have replenished my pantry with a run on Costco, I would have owed more on last month’s bill than I could pay with the amount I budgeted. I probably would have had to run a tab, and that would mean I would have had to pay interest at a usurious rate. And that’s a perspective I don’t like at all.
You are right. It actually seems unethical and amazing that they can get away with that changing the date at a whim’s notice.
And it seems unethical that they inconveniently change the billing cycle exactly at the very month that people really care about it being a day earlier rather than later: December, when most of us do all our christmas shopping.