Paying mortgage with credit card to earn miles/points

[Avercomolehago]

Does anyone have tips on a service that would allow me to pay my mortgage with a credit card so I can earn points?

[user5387]

ChargeSmart is one such service.

The fees for these services often more than negate the rewards you get.

[RobertEG]

Are mileage points that valuable?

Interest on your CC is almost assuredly much higher than that of your mortgage, and the CC will then have a substantial increase in % util, thus lowering your credit score.

[Jazzzy]

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@RobertEG wrote:

Are mileage points that valuable?

Interest on your CC is almost assuredly much higher than that of your mortgage, and the CC will then have a substantial increase in % util, thus lowering your credit score.

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You certainly don't have to pay interest or increase your utility if you pay it off prior to statement cut.

[NikoD]

This also may make sense for someone who has a CC with a promo 0% APR going on.

[Revelate]

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@NikoD wrote:

This also may make sense for someone who has a CC with a promo 0% APR going on.

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User234983 had it right, usually the fee is on the order of 3% for for the tests I ran, and that's hard to straight cover outside of the godlike rewards JCB Makurai card to my knowledge as it is going to fall to default spend I suspect for every card.

Occasionally you can find an arbitrage play where the rewards outstrip the fees, but from my research it's pretty rare and at a minimum you need a 2% card for the ones I've seen.  Also as I found playing around with chargesmart after it was mentioned, while I could pay an auto or mortgage loan through DCU, it was only by debit card and it still had a non-trivial fee associated with it.

About the only time I'd consider it outside of that would be if I had cash-flow problems: anything which keeps my cash reserve alive longer when unemployed or otherwise in financial trouble is a strategy I'm completely in faver of.  I wouldn't do it with a 0% card otherwise personally.

That all said, if I found one that was at least a wash, I'd likely do it.  It's money I'm going to have to spend anyway, why not goose my credit card spend with something which is less likely to get me in trouble than most similar tactics?  Just makes me look more profitable to every other credit card issuer out there with the information that's now on one's credit reports.  My theory anyway.

[NikoD]

Hmmm, I've never looked into the fees for something like this because I don't have a mortgage. I'm sure you're right though and it's nearly impossible to make money on it. Perhaps if someone had a new card and was trying to make the minimum spend requirement needed to earn their welcome bonus or a new card that offers an increased % cash back for the first six months before dropping to the lower % cash back after 6 months. Though I've only seen cards that offer this sort of more cash back for the first 6 months on specific catagory spending not for all spending; so that wouldn't work for any card that I know of.