Thanks, this makes sense, and thanks to everyone who chimed in. I was on the phone with a Discover rep just now and she basically explained the same thing. I asked her to explain it to me as if I was a six-year-old. What's hilarious (hilarious as in "This is pretty cynical" and not as in "hilarious ha-ha") is that we're talking about gaming this and "mastering closing dates" etc. Having just learned all about things like util rates and AAoA, it's becoming clearer to me that we need to enter the credit game if we want any kind of material comfort (even in being able to rent a place to live, much less buy one), but the rules clearly benefit the rule writers. You can choose to opt out (like pay cash for everything, so you owe nothing to anyone), but if you change your mind, you're "punished" for entering the game late. (Shallow AAOoA, for instance.) But god forbid if you play the game too well, or if you're too conscientious (paying all your TL to zero every month, or just keeping a dormant card for true emergencies), then you get dinged since you're not seen as a potentially profitable customer. Maybe I'm being too cynical as that's just the way the market deems it to be, but if that's the case, not everyone who plays knows the rules. I know financially responsbile people who are proud that they pay off every bill to zero, thinking that makes them ideal customers; when in reality they're not, and they're punished for it, however small the punishment.
