I have traded through Realfasttrader.com for the past 6 months or so. I'm sure they follow all NASD rules. I have over $25k in my account, but I have spoke to several people over there over the last 6 months and they are definitely on the up and up. I like them a little better than IB and Cyber (I've used both and several others) because you get a personal contact with realfasttrader. The commission is slightly higher than IB (I pay .01 per share), but the better service is well worth it in my opinion.
I thought it was 4 round trip day trades within 5 consecutive days. Make one trade a day, 4 days a week. Take Fri off and enjoy the long weekend.
If you have less then $25k, you can make 3 day trades in a 5 day period. If you make the 4th trade in that period, then you violate the rule and your account gets restricted to cash only trading for 90 days.
So you should be able to buy calls and puts with no limitations for 90 days? That does not seem to be the case with IB ...
The limitation would probably be that you can only spend the amount of cash that was in your account at the opening of the day. One day settlement for options means you have to wait overnight for the cash from sales to appear in your account.