http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/us...edit_card_fees

Reported that late payments made to AMEX wil result in lost points with Delta Air Lines, JetBlue, Hilton Hotels and Starwood Hotels.

As with other enhancements this could get out of control with all cards.

IIRC, this has been true for years.... certainly with MR.

It's been true with membership rewards but I don't know of any card that has done the same for miles with other airlines.

just pay your bills on time... there's no upside to paying cc late

Correct. AmEx actually announced this a while ago, IIRC, and they're just bringing their credit products in line with their charge products. Of course, on the charge side you can buy the points back for a fixed fee and they only really go missing after the second month, but it is the same general concept.

I don't really have much of a problem with this. The points are a reward that you get for doing business with the company. If you are a bad customer (=don't pay on time) then they take away the reward.

So where's the problem?

Youd think it would be the opposite Pay on time and you get no pts or whatever, you pay late you get the pts. If you pay on time they dont get any extra $$, pay late and they Ding you for some $$

I dont see it moving to Visa or MC, as by them if you havent paid the min by the due date they Ding you and charge you % . Amex although they too had a due date really allowed you to pay it up by the time the new period would close and then didnt charge any % if you did it that way.

This is the case on the charge products but not the credit products which are the ones changing.

Yes, the CC company makes some cash off folks from late payments and the associated fees, but it also significantly increases the risks they face of default. Despite the penalties and fees people who pay late aren't good customers for the CC companies. People who carry a balance are, but not those who pay late.

I guess if I ever thought about it at all, I assumed this to be the case for any loyalty program. The purpose is to attract good customers, not bad ones.

The internet is such a help to frequent travelers that we didn't have in days of old. We can just set up automatic bill pays to make sure that there's never a late payment. So we're never going to notice this "enhancement." I remember the days of trying to guess how much a bill might be that would come in while I was out of town and sending a check in advance for some random amount...

So true! I wound up putting most of my charges on Diners Club, since they gave you the extra month to pay with no penalty. Too bad the Diners Club card's acceptance was so limited.

This is an excellent point, but I hope no one will make the mistake of thinking it is a file-and-forget approach because of three facts. One, due dates drift. Two, the minimum payment is a percentage with a floor amount, not a fixed amount. Third the terms for minimum payment can change.

My HHonors Amex, for example, recently increased the floor from $75 to $100 - and buried that change in with a lot of innocuous terms changes. And I had to threaten both Amex and Citi (AAdvantage Card) with scissors to get them to stop my due dates from drifting. Amex needs to be threatened again because the due dates have started drifting again.

Bottom line: by all means set up an automatic payment to cover the expected minimum -- I certainly have -- but review each monthly bill for changes in due dates and minimums.

If you initiate the auto-pay from the CC rather than from your bank you can avoid the drift and minimums issues. @:-)

And if you're only paying the minimums every month anyways then you are almost certainly making a mistake by using a rewards card of any sort.

The best customers for CC Providers are those who carry a hefty balance on their cards.

I have heard about cases where Amex tried to have people with slightly late or "just" on time payments switch from a charge card to a "credit" card obviously speculating they could make some pretty penny.

Long ago, I lost some MR points in this way because my mailed payment arrived at AMEX one day late. Didn't try to recover the lost points as the amount was very small. Haven't been late since with online payment.