By the end of February this year, many of the main provisions of the Credit CARD Act, which was signed into law by President Obama in May of 2009, finally step into effect.

It’s been a long wait. Card issuers have spent the nine months leading up to the enactment of the new credit card rules changing credit terms to skirt the provisions with the most teeth. After a year of credit card interest rate hikes, new and steeper credit card fees, and otherwise tightened terms, you may wonder if the effectiveness of the new credit card law has long since been undermined.

Indeed, while card issuers undoubtedly have succeeded in bolstering their bottom line to a degree, there are still many reasons to breathe a sigh of relief. No, the new credit card law won’t bring you lower credit card interest rates. What it will bring, however, is more certainty in credit terms and fewer tricks and traps. And that, in itself, is worth celebrating. Here is an overview of some of the credit card tricks and traps cardholders can wave a happy good riddance to:

No more interest rate traps. Finally, the rate you have on existing balances is what you’ll get to keep. With the new law, consumers can wave goodbye to retroactive rate increases on credit card debt (apart, of course, from balances with a short-term promotional rate). Cardholders with credit card debt are no longer sitting ducks for willy-nilly rate hikes, which up till now has been one of the most troublesome features of credit card debt.

There are exceptions, however. If you are more than 60 days behind with a credit card payment, credit card companies can still stick you with a penalty default rate. In addition, card issuers can still raise interest rates on future charges, but they have to give you 45 days notice—enough time to look around for another credit card. Lastly, if you have a variable rate card (and card issuers have been hard at work to turn most credit cards into variable rate cards), the interest rate will move up if the prime rate moves up. However, the prime rate moves in small increments, so even with a variable rate card, you won’t see the sudden, dramatic interest rate spikes cardholders have been exposed to over the past year.

Default rates will be limited to six months. If your account goes into default interest rate because you’re more than 60 days behind on payments (or if your account already has a default rate), you will no longer be trapped with a default rate, until the balance is paid off. With the new law, if you pay on time for six months in a row, card issuers have to lower the default rate,. How much the rate should be lowered, however, is not specified in the law; the Federal Reserve Board is charged with elaborating on this and other details of the law. Most likely, how much the rate will be lowered will vary from cardholder to cardholder, depending on credit history and other financial characteristics.

Goodbye universal default. The universal default clause enabled card issuers to raise interest rates if you were behind with payments to another creditor, any creditor, or even if your credit score dropped. This was one really nasty clause, which could really topple a financial house of cards: a consumer falling behind with e.g. his or her car loan payments, could see credit card rates spike to 30+ percent. Going forward, card issuers will no longer be able to raise interest rates just because you’re behind with payments to another company.

No more payment traps. Card issuers have to give you at least 21 days from the time the bill is sent out before the payment is due. In addition, if the due date falls on a weekend or holiday when mail isn’t delivered, you can no longer be slapped with a late payment fee if the letter isn’t delivered until the following business day. In addition, card issuers can no longer have strange payment cut-off times, like noon on the day the payment is due—any payment which arrives by 5 pm Eastern time, must be credited the same day.

Farewell to interest charge tricks. In the past, card issuers have applied payments to the balance with the lowest interest rate only, leaving higher rate credit card balances to rake up high interest charges. With the new law, any payments above the minimum payment due must be applied to the portion of the balance with the highest interest rate. In addition, card issuers can no longer practice double cycle billing, in which they calculate interest charges based on the balance in both the current and the previous billing periods.

No more over-limit fees. Going forward, card issuers will not be able to slap you with an over-limit fee unless you opt in for overdraft protection.

Clearer disclosures about the minimum payment trap. Few cardholders are aware of how costly it is to pay off credit card debt with just the minimum payment due each month. With the new credit card rules, consumers will no longer have to be in the dark about the true costs of credit card debt. The new credit card law requires card issuers to clearly list on each monthly statement how long it would take to pay off the balance if making only the minimum payment, and how much the cardholder would pay in interest charges during that time. The statement also has to show the monthly payment amount required to pay off the balance in 36 months and what the interest charges would be.

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