You should pay “at least” the minimum payment due each month. All that matters is that you get that “paid as agreed” mark on your report for each month; you get it as long as you dont pay less than required. Even a $0 balance/payment earns the same mark. There is zero reason to pay interest.
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I share your frustrations. However:
I was told that as long as I don’t request the PIN for CA (and they don’t send it without a request), the CA feature would not be enabled on the card.
I was given a choice, either 14th or 28th.
Then you must not have any Citi or AmEx cards. As mentioned above, the law only dictates a minimum grace period and a fixed due date. The issuers that create the statement on the same day every month simply give you a longer grace period every other month.
When you say “between the 14th and the 28th” I think what you mean is “either the 14th OR the 28th” . . . . . not any day between those two dates.
My Alliant CC, for the first three months, closed on the 13th. That stunk, but I could live with it. Then, without notice, they shifted to the 14th. The REALLY stinks.
My other cards all close on the 4th of the month. For me that is the best day. The Alliant CC operation is totally and annoyingly behind the curve.
ETA
Just checked a couple of my other cards for the halibut:
Amex closing date does vary a little, but not a problem since they let me choose the date I wanted. So even when the closing date varies slightly it is no problemo. I have some cushion.
Barclays does not vary
Chase does not vary
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You don’t like that Alliant doesn’t give you your own choice of due date - that’s completely fair, a legitimate reason to complain, and possibly even a legitimate reason not to use the card depending on your needs.
However, that doesn’t mean the entire department or credit card operation is awful, nor does it mean they are breaking the law.
It’s basically like saying - AMEX doesn’t allow price-matching like all the other major issuers do; therefore, their credit cards are awful and they’re breaking the law.
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Sorry to tell you, but your Oct statement would’ve closed on the 14th as well - but the 14th was a Saturday. It’s a rather simple formula - take the set payment due date, and count backwards 25 days.
When your Feb statement closes on the 11th, it wont be “sudden” or “without notice”.
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Whatever.
As I already have posted up thread, other CC issuers are making this happen. And it is not a function of the number of employees. It relates, instead, to the lack of sophistication and flexibility in Alliant’s back-office software.
I’ve no interest in making excuses for Alliant’s CC operation failures and shortcomings. Instead, my intent in posting is to prod them to do better. There is a WHALE of a lot of room for improvement.
Finally, my most recent statement closed on the 14th . . . a Sunday. Is there some cockamamie reason they can close out a statement on Sunday, but not on a Saturday? There most likely IS such a reason. Nothing would surprise me with this outfit. They probably make this stuff up as they go along.
Alliant posts transactions every day of the week except Saturdays.
Before you call that cockamamie, Wells Fargo is the same. Others post transactions on Saturdays but not Sundays, and yet others dont post anything over the weekend. If they dont post transactions on that day, there’s no reason you should expect them to cycle a statement either.
Maybe you should try using an issuer like (I believe) Discover, who will wait until Monday to cycle the statement, but back-date it to Sat or Sun so that the printed statement date remains “the same” every month.
Well, I just knew it had to be something. There are always excuses for doing things poorly.
Discover? I dunno. Don’t use 'em. But as already posted, Barclays and Chase do a fine job. This is 2018. All providers could do an equally fine job if effort were put forth.
As already mentioned, AmEx does not offer a steady statement closing date. But AmEx does allow choice of date, which mitigates the dilemma a great deal.
Only at Alliant are cardholders hit with the one-two punch of an unsteady closing date together with excessively limited choice of nominal date. Sucks
Yeah, compared to the big boys, their CC handling and lack of flexibility is pretty bad. A few other things I noticed:
- I get the “your latest statement is ready” notification email, but my latest statement is nowhere to be found.
- It takes a month to get cash back credited to the account.
I’m willing to forgive for the extra CB, I just won’t be putting any purchases on it that may require extra care (like travel reservations or electronics).
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Isnt it worse to let you choose a date, then still vary that date month to month?
And you sure about Barclays? My last Barclays card that was supposed to cycle on a Saturday, actually cycled on Friday but was stamped with the “correct” Saturday date. While the statement date was the 3rd, my small balance credit was dated the 2nd.
And speaking of which, if your other cards close on the 4th of the month, the varying days in the month are never a factor, since the grace period never pushes the due date into the following month - that’s the only reason your statement date never changes…
Yeah . . . . no. Deal for me is wanting to pay bills after statement closes. Also like to pay some bills relatively early in the month. My key due days of the month are the tenth and (especially) the fifteenth for taxes.
Really, if I could choose my day of the month for statement closing this entire thing would sort of go away. I would just live with the slightly variable day. Annoying? Yeah, a little. Worth bellyaching over? Not really.
But with Alliant choosing the day for me, and with that day also varying, it is a real annoying PITA.
Like, if you’re right about the fourth being a stable day, why does Alliant have to deny cardholders use (i.e., choice) of that day? Seems like it would be a good choice.
If you send the cashback to your checking or savings account it takes two days.
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Because they have a relatively small credit card portfolio (they actually underwrite their own credit card product, instead of contracting it out like most credit unions), and it simply wouldnt be cost effective to run 30 closing cycles each month. It’s pretty safe to assume that the department responsible for running statements each month has other responsibilities the other 3+ weeks of every month.
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In just did that this time around to test that theory a day ago. Based on this conversation the “entities” that run cc and bank feel divided so I figured…lets work with that and give it a try
I have had pretty good luck with this. For example, I sent cashback to checking this past Monday, a holiday. The money is there today. Really cannot complain too much about that service.
OTOH, I also sent money on Monday, again a holiday, from savings to CC, to pay off a portion of my balance and free up some credit. The money arrived in the CC account today . . . so good. And the funds were good funds, too . . . had been on deposit in savings forever; so no holds.
But even though those funds are showing as received today, they did not add to my credit line; which is why I moved the funds in the first place. Annoying
Who knows what these Alliant CC people are doing!
ETA
I was wrong . . . well . . . I was right but I also was wrong. The aforementioned funds were eventually properly credited to my c/l. But it took perhaps an extra hour or two. I checked earlier today but not all that early. Still, I was too early. I should have given them more time.
Well, if you’re right I guess that’s fair. But they need to offer more than just two options for statement closing day. What they are offering now is VERY confining.
Does anyone have Alliant CU 3% cash back card?
I’m still trying to get a limit upgrade on my 2% cash back card. Problem is I’ve only had the card for 1 month. I’m keeping the utilization rate at or below 10%, by paying off the balance when it reaches less than $250. So I’ve made 3 payments as of now.
I’d imagine they don’t actually need to. They can fill their quota without doing that because they offer an easy 2.5% cash back with no other requirements. You can get higher cash back with other cards, but they all require doing or having something extra.
Maybe they need to offer more than just two options for you to be their customer, but they’ve probably considered the fact that they may lose customers to that and have accepted that risk.
I think you need to acknowledge there is some sort of cost to changing their system - whether it be implementation cost, ongoing administrative cost, customer experience cost, etc. Alliant’s credit card operation is aware of the potential desire of customers to choose their own [payment date/due date/whatever]. They have determined that the cost in doing so is not worth it. It’s fine that you’re upset about that, but I just don’t see the need to continue attacking them over this.
You sound like you’re pretty demanding of your issuers - not attacking you and nothing wrong with this IMO, and I’m somewhat this way too. However, I think you have to acknowledge and accept that some banks won’t want to deal with customers like you or me and they’re willing to lose any possible benefit of working with demanding customers in exchange for keeping their customer service costs down.
FWIW I recently moved significant activities away from Alliant because they wouldn’t approve me for the 2.5%/3% cash back card even though I said I’m willing to accept a $1,500 limit - so no, I don’t work for Alliant 
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I have that card. Am doing my best to max everything out during this great 3% deal.
After one year my reward will drop to 2 1/2%. But I have seen other, more recent Alliant CC deals, where after one year the reward drops all the way down to 2%.
For me a 2% reward deal with a yearly fee is a non-starter because I already have a Priceline card (2% reward with no annual fee).
Anyway, you gotta be watchful of what exactly is being offered.
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Exactly!! I like the 2% Alliant CC (at this time) because there is no yearly fee. But they only gave me $2500 credit limit & I’m trying the get that limit raised quickly.
I originally wanted the 2.5% but there is the yearly fee after the first year. It’s the one that they said I couldn’t qualify for because I didn’t show a credit rating.