I canceled my escrow account a few months into my mortgage. The benefits were 3 fold:
1. I get to control when I make my property tax payment, which has allowed me to pay them every other tax year (Such as Jan and Dec 2015) to actually make itemizing worthwhile.
2. Monthly payment is lower and my money isn't being held and wasted.
3. Paying my property tax and insurance myself gives me the flexibility to use a new CC to meet a spending requirement for a bonus points.
We're also not using escrow and I'm curious about (3) - I know we can pay our insurance with a CC but did you have troubles paying property taxes with one? Or paying your property taxes extra in one year? When I look at our county assessors site I see property tax payments made nearly always on the same months every year.
Guess this depends on the tax office. For me, I get a letter in late November/early December that tells me my tax bill. As long as I pay before Feb 1, there is no late fee. For this last go round, I paid my 2014 taxes in Jan 2015, and my 2015 taxes in December 2015. This was all through the county website.
On the CC part, the website had a CC option for me to pay with. They do attach a fee, so it is not worth it unless you are trying to hit some kind of threshold. I usually pay by direct deposit, but I did pay the fees one time to earn a SW companion pass.