Pay bills via MasterCard for 1.5% fee

Today is the last day to pay any new bill for a fee of only 1.5% (see: Limited time: 1.5% credit card bill payment fee; MasterCard only).  However, Plastiq has introduced a new promo that’s available tomorrow through October 13th:

Between October 1 (tomorrow) and October 13th: All MasterCard payments of $500 or more will qualify for a 1.5% transaction fee (the usual fee is 2.5%).

Details

• Promotion runs October 1 through October 13.
• For one-time, scheduled or recurring payments, each individual payment must be at least $500.
• Payment must be made or scheduled within the promotion timeframe for promotional rate to apply.
• Promotion is automatically available to all accounts – no promotion code or sign-up required.
• IMPORTANT: Please know that all payments are subject to review and additional information may be requested to complete your transaction.
• Editing a payment after the promotional period will cause you to lose the promotional rate for that payment.

Quick analysis

The primary differences between the new promotion (starting tomorrow) and the existing one (ending today) are :

• The existing promotion is only good for new payees.  The new promo can be used with either existing or new payees.
• The existing promotion is available for payments of any size.  The new promo requires payments of $500 or more.

If you have any qualifying bills to pay and you’re working on meeting minimum spend requirements on a MasterCard credit card, this is an easy and fairly inexpensive solution.    This can also work well for those with a MasterCard that earns rewards worth more than 1.5%.  A good example is the Citi Double Cash card which earns 2% cash back across the board.

Keep in mind that you can lock in this promo rate by scheduling repeated payments.

See the “Cautions” section below.

If you have flexibility in the amount you pay (perhaps you want to pay down the principal on your mortgage, for example), then you can pick the target amount you want to spend on your credit card and divide by 1.015 to determine your bill payment amount.  For example, suppose you need to spend $2,000 in order to meet a minimum spend requirement.  In that case, divide $2,000 by 1.015 to get $1970.44.  Plug in that amount as your bill payment amount within Plastiq and the total, after the 1.5% fee, should come to $2,000 exactly.

Cautions

A number of readers have told me about issues they’ve had with payments taking a long time to verify and to ultimately show up as received by their payee.  If you use this service, make sure to make payments much earlier than required in order to avoid late payment fees or other issues.

Questions?

Full details about Plastiq can be found here: Complete guide to Plastiq credit card payments.  There, you will find answers to questions such as:

• Is Plastiq reliable?
• What types of payments are allowed?
• Can I pay with gift cards?
• Do Plastiq payments count as purchases or cash advances? (answer: purchases)

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