Sending your credit payment on time every month is a minimum requirement. If you are only one day late (sometimes even hours or even late minutes), you will have to deal with the many consequences of delay.
Paying for a credit card early may seem like the perfect way to get to know your credit card companies
Although early payment is useful, it is not entirely necessary in terms of making timely payments and staying in good standing with your creditors.
Sending your credit card early – a few days before the due date – is the best way to ensure your payment is on time. If you wait to send your payment just a day or two before the due date, you run the risk of your payments being delayed, especially if you submit your payment. Paying early is also a good practice if you tend to miss payments because you forgot to come.
Can you send payment early?
There is such a thing that you pay your bill too early and it can result in late payments to you. This can happen if you submit a credit card before the end of your statement date. This payment applies to the current month and you will still pay in the coming month. Let’s say, for example, the end date of your statement is January 15, and you’ll make early payments on January 13 or 14. That payment will apply to the January billing period, and the February payment on the January 15 billing bill is yet to be made.
Maintaining a billing cycle and closing date can be difficult. Your online billing application is the best place to check your current minimum payment.
Advantages of early credit card payments
Paying a credit card early can benefit your credit score in terms of redeeming credit by reducing the credit card balance reported to credit bureaus.
The balance sent to credit bureaus is often your balance as of the closing date of the statement. Paying your balance before closing the statement could help your credit score in terms of the amount of debt you have reported, but keep in mind that paying early may result in late fees if you miss the next payment.
Sending your credit card early can also help you save interest. If a credit card company uses either the average daily balance or the daily balance method, reducing its rate early in the billing cycle reduces the balance used to calculate financing costs. The more days you have the lower your balance, the lower your interest will be. If you wait until later in the billing cycle to make a payment, your balance will remain longer in the billing cycle, which means that your average balance will be higher and you will pay more interest.
Planning future credit card payments
If you need to make a credit card payment early, say because you will be traveling when the next payment arrives, but you do not want the credit to your account in the wrong billing cycle, you can schedule a payment. Sign in to your online account to make the payment as you normally would and enter a date for future payment.
Credit card payment will be processed on the date of entry. Online bank payments can also allow you to plan for future payments. You can select this option if you want to specify several payments in one place instead of visiting multiple payment scheduling websites.