This is definitely the ticket to having no late fees.

I’ve had cards that don’t have the autopay feature and I prefer to pay these by phone, because it takes place immediately. I shortly then get an email acknowledging payment. I prefer the phone for paying (if it’s free) to online payment. American Express is free phone payment, but many are not. I never mail a payment in except when I’m paying the extra, so there’s no getting frantic about missing payment, as Cat said. I just use the online feature for accessing the accounts (change the passwords frequently), and getting email reminders.

One email reminder that is slightly deceiving and ought to be removed from one of the company’s software somehow is that one card reminds me of a payment even though it is already on autopay–telling me that I should go ahead and pay it quickly for a fee: This should not appear because being signed up for autopay means I never have to think about paying the minimum myself.

One card I cancelled from autopay a few years ago because I would get the bill or see it online and it would say the due date was such and such date, then would deduct payment BEFORE that date. This was only a couple of days, but that could have been just the couple of days when I hadn’t made sure to cover it in my account. Most of them post it on the due date, but it does not post as a payment on your checking account, etc., until several days later.

You still have to keep up, but it’s a whole lot easier if you don’t have to waste time on deadlines. I don’t know why anyone would care, as mentioned by one commenter, that the credit card bank has access to your checking account if you planned to pay at least the minimum anyway. In any case, this method has meant that I’ve never once had to pay a late fee.

another deal that card companies have are promotions like $25 for going electronic statements. I don’t know if any have them now, but I’ve received a couple.

i prefer to do billpay through my bank. i can input almost all my accounts on my online bank and monitor account balances from there. i can also set up payee options and request ebills through the bank rather than ebill through the creditors.

Also, some credit cards take a few weeks to verify bank account information, so don’t always assume that you can create an account the day before. This was the case with my Citibank rewards card.