[John Locke]

Anyone who runs a credit card balance is a moron. Period.

Not so fast. A credit card with a high limit is a good safeguard against a cash emergency. As happened to me a couple of years ago, when a sudden death had the family scrambling to get to the funeral. Six round-trip airline flights is a chunk of change, and we had to book them in 2 days.

But you won't get a high limit if the computers think you're a poor customer, an that's what their idiot programs will think if you always pay off.

A better strategy, in my opinion (as informed by one of the guys who wrote the idiot program in question), is to charge something big about once every couple of years, and take 2 to 3 months to pay it off. Yes, it costs you a little interest (about 2%), but to the computer you now smell like a rose.

[HiTech RedNeck]

I always pay off during the grace period, and have something like three platinums and 2 golds that have caps of several thousand each. (Not to mention a couple or so home-improvement store credit cards.) Put together they would fly your family to Timbuktu and back if needed. And I still get several offers a month for platinums and golds and "ordinary" cards. I am not exactly filthy rich, either, and have about 20 years of mortgage to go. If I stink creditwise, nobody ever told the computers.

[leadpenny]

A credit card with a high limit is a good safeguard against a cash emergency.

I agree with that.

. . .an that's what their idiot programs will think if you always pay off.

But not with that. I always, ALWAYS pay off my credit cards and they have never lowered my available credit.

Bottom line is that if more people ran there affairs like those who have posted on this thread . . there wouldn't be any credit cards. That might be a good thing.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

There are three things that are okay to go into debt for: houses, cars (when absolutely neceessary) and family emergencies. Most people who have credit card debt ran it up frivolously, but they will vehemently deny it.