Author Topic: Pay Your Rent with Credit Card to Earn Points  (Read 5066 times)

VladTheImpaler

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Pay Your Rent with Credit Card to Earn Points
« on: January 30, 2017, 12:48:31 PM »
Rent is my largest reoccurring monthly expense, so I want to pay it with a credit card that gives me 2% points on all purchases.
The problem is that it costs 3.5% fee to pay rent with a credit card (from the company that manages the rent payments for my apartment.
Obviously, the fees negates the benefits of the CC points.

Does anyone know a hack to pay rent from your checking account, yet somehow still draw the charge every month on the CC?
(I'm imagining our MMM CC churners know of some kind of gift card purchase work around...)

THanks!

tarheeldan

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Re: Pay Your Rent with Credit Card to Earn Points
« Reply #1 on: January 30, 2017, 12:53:30 PM »
I don't know of any worthwhile way to do it for 2%. Sign-up bonuses are a different story, it can be very worthwhile to use Plastiq to pay your rent. However, credit card companies - e.g. Chase - are clamping down on cash-like transactions. I was able to use Plastiq because I had my payee set up before  the rules change, but Chase is likely to consider new payees a cash advance - eek! Not sure about Citi or whichever card you are talking about.

boarder42

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Re: Pay Your Rent with Credit Card to Earn Points
« Reply #2 on: January 30, 2017, 12:55:08 PM »
not really thats easy and makes sense.  its simpler to just MS the other ways than trying to do it to pay a mortgage.

tawyer

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Re: Pay Your Rent with Credit Card to Earn Points
« Reply #3 on: January 30, 2017, 12:56:47 PM »
You can pay your rent with credit cards that have a signup bonus, e.g., spend $3000 and get 50K points. The points on a $3K spend typically have a value of about $300 (more if spend on travel, less if converted to statement credit), so you can effectively net approximately 10% off your rent with a little legwork.

VladTheImpaler

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Re: Pay Your Rent with Credit Card to Earn Points
« Reply #4 on: January 30, 2017, 12:58:25 PM »
It's the Citi Double Cash CC.
(1% when you purchase and 1% when you pay your bill for a total of 2%).

The 2% equates to almost $300 in points for the year (12 monthly payments).

Nothlit

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Re: Pay Your Rent with Credit Card to Earn Points
« Reply #5 on: January 30, 2017, 01:14:18 PM »
Yeah, it generally is only worthwhile if you do it to meet a sign-up bonus. After that it's rarely profitable.

You could get into the full-blown manufactured spending cycle of credit card -> Visa gift card -> money order -> bank -> credit card. That's a closed loop, so the payment of your rent is not even a factor in that. But it can also be tedious and a little risky.

boarder42

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Re: Pay Your Rent with Credit Card to Earn Points
« Reply #6 on: January 30, 2017, 01:14:46 PM »
It's the Citi Double Cash CC.
(1% when you purchase and 1% when you pay your bill for a total of 2%).

The 2% equates to almost $300 in points for the year (12 monthly payments).

there is no way to make this profitable.

Shor

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Re: Pay Your Rent with Credit Card to Earn Points
« Reply #7 on: January 30, 2017, 01:25:03 PM »
It's the Citi Double Cash CC.
(1% when you purchase and 1% when you pay your bill for a total of 2%).

The 2% equates to almost $300 in points for the year (12 monthly payments).

there is no way to make this profitable.
Unless you can find some way to get someone else to eat the CC charges, it will be very difficult to get enough margin on this to make it worthwhile.

Promotion spend targets usually can get you 10-20% back, which could be profitable, you simply need to get them at the right times.

Alternatively, getting a 0% card for 12-18 months might also be feasible. But this is really putting off today's costs and hoping that you get some extra gains in the market to make up for it when the amount comes due. Again, viability depends on the market swinging your way over the mid term aka decent chance, not a sure thing, and definitely additional headache and risk if things go poorly. Sustainability over 2-3 promotions might really net you ahead, however rolling CC debt in to another 0% promotion is rarely fee free, although there might be one or two cards that have this which will let you delay paying the piper. But after 12-24 months of rent buildup coming due, that's definitely not play-money you're handling...

Prairie Stash

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Re: Pay Your Rent with Credit Card to Earn Points
« Reply #8 on: January 30, 2017, 03:03:29 PM »
My landlord gave a 2% rebate for direct debit. They guaranteed timely rent payments that way.

If you don't get a discount then pay by post dated check until they get annoyed and offer a better deal. Make it payable on an awkward date like the 2nd of every month, or closer to the cutoff for late payment that's in your agreement. It will all be legal and fair, just annoying.

Or move. 

VladTheImpaler

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Re: Pay Your Rent with Credit Card to Earn Points
« Reply #9 on: January 30, 2017, 06:58:30 PM »
Yeah, it generally is only worthwhile if you do it to meet a sign-up bonus. After that it's rarely profitable.

You could get into the full-blown manufactured spending cycle of credit card -> Visa gift card -> money order -> bank -> credit card. That's a closed loop, so the payment of your rent is not even a factor in that. But it can also be tedious and a little risky.

Yeah, that's along the lines of what I was thinking too.
Boarder42 is right, "there is no way to make this profitable."
Stupid Apartment management company charging a 3.5% fee just to pay with a credit card.
But I want those points!! LOL

Thanks for all the creative suggestions.

Indexer

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Re: Pay Your Rent with Credit Card to Earn Points
« Reply #10 on: January 30, 2017, 08:55:02 PM »
There USE to be a way to do it. There was a target debit card that had bill pay. You could load it at Target with a credit card, and then use the billpay to pay your bills. I pulled it off for about 6 months before Target turned that function off.

If you find a new way I would be really interested to hear it!

sparkytheop

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Re: Pay Your Rent with Credit Card to Earn Points
« Reply #11 on: January 30, 2017, 09:54:42 PM »
For years I have wished I could do this with my mortgage.  I try to pay for everything I can with the credit card (also the Double Cash card).  Being able to pay my mortgage with the cc would give me an extra $250/year.

boarder42

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Re: Pay Your Rent with Credit Card to Earn Points
« Reply #12 on: January 31, 2017, 04:22:08 AM »
There are way better more focused credit cards for purchases than the double cash card.

1 grocery - amex blue cash preferred 6%
2 gas - bank americard cash 3.3%
3 discover/ freedom etc for quarterly 5% cash back.

kpd905

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Re: Pay Your Rent with Credit Card to Earn Points
« Reply #13 on: January 31, 2017, 06:34:04 AM »
Go for the sign up bonuses, and try Plastiq for 2.5% fee instead of 3.5%.  They will mail a check to your landlord.

If you sign up for a card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred, you will end up with 59,000 Ultimate rewards points after spending $4,000 in 3 months and adding an authorized user.  This is worth $590 straight cash back or $737 toward flights or hotels through the Chase portal.

Assuming you need to put every penny of that minimum spend through Plastiq, you'd pay $100 in fees.  So your profit is either $490 or $637, depending on what you use the points for.