Amex serve?

[red259]

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@hiro905 wrote:

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@mongstradamus wrote:

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@red259 wrote:

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@mongstradamus wrote:

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@red259 wrote:

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@hiro905 wrote:

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@mongstradamus wrote:

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@hiro905 wrote:

Great discussion.  I've been using serve for a little while now for bill pay and its been great, getting rewards whether it be points or cb is just a bonus.

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i am thinking of starting to double dip an bit with serve , don't know if its too risky to fund with my QS and pay off my freedom and CSP bills. I have heard mixed stories about whether you can pay amex bills with serve or not. 

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I've funded using a cc to pay off another cc with no issues.  As for paying off amex bills I'm not sure.   

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I don't know who is claiming you can't pay amex bills with serve but if they are saying that they are lying. Maybe what you are thinking of is loading with amex in which case you won't earn any points for the serve load.

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plan was to pay off my BCP with my cap one funded serve account. Well will see how it goes I am thinking of maybe i should trasnfer my points out first to be safe, problem is i don't know where to transfer my UR poitns yet debating avios or SQ

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I'm not sure what the concern is here. People do this all the time without problems. No need to go moving points around needlessly. 

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Will see how it goes this month I will report if there are any issues my freedom is due next week so we will see when i pay it off :-) 5x UR points +1.5CB with QS not too shabby 

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To put your mind at ease I've paid off my Chase cards with no problems.

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Oh I've paid chase cards with BB without a problem as well and its basically the same thing. 

[mongstradamus]

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@red259 wrote:

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@hiro905 wrote:

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@mongstradamus wrote:

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@red259 wrote:

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@mongstradamus wrote:

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@red259 wrote:

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@hiro905 wrote:

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@mongstradamus wrote:

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@hiro905 wrote:

Great discussion.  I've been using serve for a little while now for bill pay and its been great, getting rewards whether it be points or cb is just a bonus.

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i am thinking of starting to double dip an bit with serve , don't know if its too risky to fund with my QS and pay off my freedom and CSP bills. I have heard mixed stories about whether you can pay amex bills with serve or not. 

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I've funded using a cc to pay off another cc with no issues.  As for paying off amex bills I'm not sure.   

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I don't know who is claiming you can't pay amex bills with serve but if they are saying that they are lying. Maybe what you are thinking of is loading with amex in which case you won't earn any points for the serve load.

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plan was to pay off my BCP with my cap one funded serve account. Well will see how it goes I am thinking of maybe i should trasnfer my points out first to be safe, problem is i don't know where to transfer my UR poitns yet debating avios or SQ

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I'm not sure what the concern is here. People do this all the time without problems. No need to go moving points around needlessly. 

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Will see how it goes this month I will report if there are any issues my freedom is due next week so we will see when i pay it off :-) 5x UR points +1.5CB with QS not too shabby 

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To put your mind at ease I've paid off my Chase cards with no problems.

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Oh I've paid chase cards with BB without a problem as well and its basically the same thing. 

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I did discover earlier in the month and everything seemed to go ok, so will do freedom and BCP later this week :-)

[longtimelurker]

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@red259 wrote:

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Oh I've paid chase cards with BB without a problem as well and its basically the same thing. 

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While I agree that there isn't an issue, not quite the same:

With BB, the payments come from a generic place (a processor that handles payments from all different sources) so the bank does not know it was from BB.  It's safe to use BB to pay off the bill of the card used to buy gcs to load BB.  Since cc loads aren't allowed, there is no easy trail: card X was used to buy gift cards, bb was loaded with those gift cards, and then X was paid off, but no entity has access to all these steps.

How do  payments from serve appears on your cc statement?  Since it is the same platform hopefully the same processor is used and they cannot tell it is from serve.  Otherwise here the loop is much more direct if you are paying the same card.   Card X used to load serve, serve used to pay card X.   But if they cannot tell the payment is from serve, no problem.   And loading with X, and paying card Y is anyway safe.

[mongstradamus]

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@longtimelurker wrote:

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@red259 wrote:

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Oh I've paid chase cards with BB without a problem as well and its basically the same thing. 

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While I agree that there isn't an issue, not quite the same:

With BB, the payments come from a generic place (a processor that handles payments from all different sources) so the bank does not know it was from BB.  It's safe to use BB to pay off the bill of the card used to buy gcs to load BB.  Since cc loads aren't allowed, there is no easy trail: card X was used to buy gift cards, bb was loaded with those gift cards, and then X was paid off, but no entity has access to all these steps.

How do  payments from serve appears on your cc statement?  Since it is the same platform hopefully the same processor is used and they cannot tell it is from serve.  Otherwise here the loop is much more direct if you are paying the same card.   Card X used to load serve, serve used to pay card X.   But if they cannot tell the payment is from serve, no problem.   And loading with X, and paying card Y is anyway safe.

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That is probably true, but what i was thinking if there was an manual review by an real person, they could probably tell when you are buying GC with an ink or BC card when they just see 500+ charges yes no ?

[red259]

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@longtimelurker wrote:

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@red259 wrote:

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Oh I've paid chase cards with BB without a problem as well and its basically the same thing. 

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While I agree that there isn't an issue, not quite the same:

With BB, the payments come from a generic place (a processor that handles payments from all different sources) so the bank does not know it was from BB.  It's safe to use BB to pay off the bill of the card used to buy gcs to load BB.  Since cc loads aren't allowed, there is no easy trail: card X was used to buy gift cards, bb was loaded with those gift cards, and then X was paid off, but no entity has access to all these steps.

How do  payments from serve appears on your cc statement?  Since it is the same platform hopefully the same processor is used and they cannot tell it is from serve.  Otherwise here the loop is much more direct if you are paying the same card.   Card X used to load serve, serve used to pay card X.   But if they cannot tell the payment is from serve, no problem.   And loading with X, and paying card Y is anyway safe.

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True, but I think it would be extremely foolish for someone to pay the same card with serve that they used to load.On my statement it just says electronic payment receieved (of course that was an amex statement. Never paid a different card with serve). 

[red259]

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@mongstradamus wrote:

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@longtimelurker wrote:

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@red259 wrote:

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Oh I've paid chase cards with BB without a problem as well and its basically the same thing. 

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While I agree that there isn't an issue, not quite the same:

With BB, the payments come from a generic place (a processor that handles payments from all different sources) so the bank does not know it was from BB.  It's safe to use BB to pay off the bill of the card used to buy gcs to load BB.  Since cc loads aren't allowed, there is no easy trail: card X was used to buy gift cards, bb was loaded with those gift cards, and then X was paid off, but no entity has access to all these steps.

How do  payments from serve appears on your cc statement?  Since it is the same platform hopefully the same processor is used and they cannot tell it is from serve.  Otherwise here the loop is much more direct if you are paying the same card.   Card X used to load serve, serve used to pay card X.   But if they cannot tell the payment is from serve, no problem.   And loading with X, and paying card Y is anyway safe.

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That is probably true, but what i was thinking if there was an manual review by an real person, they could probably tell when you are buying GC with an ink or BC card when they just see 500+ charges yes no ?

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Yes or doing 5k at CVS every month that was an obvious one. 

[longtimelurker]

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@mongstradamus wrote:

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@longtimelurker wrote:

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@red259 wrote:

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Oh I've paid chase cards with BB without a problem as well and its basically the same thing. 

---

While I agree that there isn't an issue, not quite the same:

With BB, the payments come from a generic place (a processor that handles payments from all different sources) so the bank does not know it was from BB.  It's safe to use BB to pay off the bill of the card used to buy gcs to load BB.  Since cc loads aren't allowed, there is no easy trail: card X was used to buy gift cards, bb was loaded with those gift cards, and then X was paid off, but no entity has access to all these steps.

How do  payments from serve appears on your cc statement?  Since it is the same platform hopefully the same processor is used and they cannot tell it is from serve.  Otherwise here the loop is much more direct if you are paying the same card.   Card X used to load serve, serve used to pay card X.   But if they cannot tell the payment is from serve, no problem.   And loading with X, and paying card Y is anyway safe.

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That is probably true, but what i was thinking if there was an manual review by an real person, they could probably tell when you are buying GC with an ink or BC card when they just see 500+ charges yes no ?

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Right, but that's nothing to with serve per se.   That's just the risk of human eyes examining a MS account!   With serve, the equivalent is the load with the cc, but as discussed, that seems to be allowed.

[Open123]

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@longtimelurker wrote:

How do  payments from serve appears on your cc statement?  

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Not sure if it's uniform for all Serve users, but when I used it to pay Discover, it listed "Wells Fargo XXXX" on the payment detail screen.  Chase and Amex on push payments have never listed the last 4 digits of a paid from account, but Discover does, at least for me.

[JSS3]

I want this card!  I'll mostly be paying electric/phone/cable/Internet bills. I'm on the PaywithIsis site now. Am I misunderstanding this...must you have a phone? You can't get a physical card and reload on the website using a computer?

[Anonymous]

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@longtimelurker wrote:

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@Open123 wrote:

2.  I don't believe in paying third parties a fee just to process a bill pay.  If Serve is MS, so is the latter, but MS with a fee to a third party.  It's stupid.  Don't do it.

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I agree if you mean ChargeSmart and things like that.  But my Walmart/WU comment is when people are bringing cash to pay their bills for a small fee, because they don't have bank accounts or credit cards.    That's not MS, it's either explotation or capitalism at its best, depending on your idealogy!

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I just as much assumed he meant services like ChargeSmart, that charge exorbitant fees. If their fees were semi-reasonable, it woulb be worth it to me to use them just to cut out the middle-man. But, their fees are astronimical and I'm not gonna pay 3-5% to some third-party service to be able to use my own money.