topic Re: Paying Rent with my AMEX. Should I? DONT DO IT!!!! (Update) in Credit Cards

Paying Rent with my AMEX. Should I? DONT DO IT!!!! (Update)

mross1080 — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 03:17:41 GMT

Never seen this question before so I figured Id throw it out there. My complex offers paying your rent with a credit card including AMEX. Im tempted to do this because I pay the rent every month anyway I might as well rack up a whole lot of points. But I know how everyone says amex is very picky about what you charge. I dont want to throw any red flags up. Do you think this is a good idea or should I stay away from it? I dont really need to use it I have the money readily available just wanted the points. Thanks.

Re: Paying Rent with my AMEX. Should I?

hedgeclipper2 — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 19:21:56 GMT

Charge card or revolver?

Re: Paying Rent with my AMEX. Should I?

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 19:23:50 GMT

In all likelihood, they will charge you a fee for using a credit card that will far outweigh your rewards.

Scan through your lease and check for the details.

Re: Paying Rent with my AMEX. Should I?

mross1080 — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 19:30:25 GMT

Charge card. Green card to be specific. And I just got off the phone with them about it and theres no fee. Its also a new account 2 months old so I dont know if that will come into play as good because they dont know my habits yet or bad for the same reason.

Re: Paying Rent with my AMEX. Should I?

hedgeclipper2 — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 19:32:41 GMT

You should be fine considering Amex has a pay your mortgage on your charge card thingy.

I would call Amex and make sure a charge that large will go through first and maybe explain to them its your rent. Their customer service is great and they can tell you if it will be okay or not.

Re: Paying Rent with my AMEX. Should I?

Uncle_Money — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 21:02:23 GMT

I charge anything and everything to my Amex cards.

Unless your report is showing high utilization or another red flag to Amex such as a late pay, I would not worry about this.

You shouldn't have any problems.

Re: Paying Rent with my AMEX. Should I?

Anonymous — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 01:30:24 GMT

@Uncle_Money wrote:
I charge anything and everything to my Amex cards.

Unless your report is showing high utilization or another red flag to Amex such as a late pay, I would not worry about this.

You shouldn't have any problems.

UM

I agree with this. Some people here think that American Express is a diva. In fact, they're probably happy that you use your card. In this climate, they have lowered their allegedly high standards from the past and are accepting a lot of new cardmembers with mediocre credit.

We all have trivial everyday charges, be it that we have excellent or bad credit. Not everyone here uses their Amex cards to buy the latest Prada purse. The last charge that I ran on my Blue Cash was actually a Chipotle chicken burrito!

Re: Paying Rent with my AMEX. Should I?

Uncle_Money — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 03:04:53 GMT

wollepopolle,

That's way too funny because I also last used my Blue Cash card for a Chipotle chicken burrito today!

Re: Paying Rent with my AMEX. Should I?

mross1080 — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:24:33 GMT

Well I did it. Well see what happens. Hopefully just a great amount of rewards points.

Re: Paying Rent with my AMEX. Should I?

Anonymous — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:26:41 GMT

I'm jealous mross, let us know how it goes!

Re: Paying Rent with my AMEX. Should I?

Tazman81 — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:28:49 GMT

@mross1080 wrote:
Well I did it. Well see what happens. Hopefully just a great amount of rewards points.

Fantastic. Just let us know how it goes. I would just go ahead and send in that payment to your AMEX. So the money you would have normally used to pay your rent, just go ahead and send it to AMEX to pay off what was just charged. So, there were no additional fees or amount charged by the rental agency? If not, then you should be well on your way to good rewards and probably an increase in your charge limit as you are spending (and paying off) more on your card each month. The AMEX gods like to see that.... .

Re: Paying Rent with my AMEX. Should I?

mross1080 — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:36:19 GMT

Well im going to try to run everything this month through amex and see how it goes. Rent, Electric, Auto Insurance, Cable Internet Phone, And Cell Phone and see how it goes. They all except amex with no additional charges. If all goes well Ill get some sweet rewards for paying stuff I pay anyway. Now my other thought is should I make a couple payments during the month or just wait till it posts and pay it?

Re: Paying Rent with my AMEX. Should I?

Tazman81 — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:50:37 GMT

@mross1080 wrote:
Well im going to try to run everything this month through amex and see how it goes. Rent, Electric, Auto Insurance, Cable Internet Phone, And Cell Phone and see how it goes. They all except amex with no additional charges. If all goes well Ill get some sweet rewards for paying stuff I pay anyway. Now my other thought is should I make a couple payments during the month or just wait till it posts and pay it?

Pay immediately.... why hold on to the money? Not saying that you will, but what many end up doing is charging things on their credit card and then they "see extra cash", so end up spending more. When your rent is due, you normally pay it out of your paycheck. So, stroke the check to AMEX and pay your rent. This will make sure that all of your "essentials" are being covered via cash, verses by credit. I do like your idea of getting using the AMEX for all of your bills and getting all those extra points, but I would pay it off right away.

Re: Paying Rent with my AMEX. Should I?

mross1080 — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:56:24 GMT

I just dont know If amex will worry if I make multiple payments in a month that it will red flag or something and If they might like a big number at statement close. Im probably overthinking this too much. And on another note. The spending the money wouldnt happen to me Im overly crazy about whats in my accounts and I have one account just for bills and a set amount goes into that account weekly and money only gets taken out for bills nothing else. I have a seperate account for savings and a seperate account for entertainment.

Re: Paying Rent with my AMEX. Should I?

Tazman81 — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 18:27:48 GMT

@mross1080 wrote:
I just dont know If amex will worry if I make multiple payments in a month that it will red flag or something and If they might like a big number at statement close. Im probably overthinking this too much. And on another note. The spending the money wouldnt happen to me Im overly crazy about whats in my accounts and I have one account just for bills and a set amount goes into that account weekly and money only gets taken out for bills nothing else. I have a seperate account for savings and a seperate account for entertainment.

kudos for the separate accounts. Yes, you're over thinking it. AMEX likes to get their money, so its doubtful that multiple payments on your account would be bad. Years ago before all of my troubles, I made 7 or 8 payments to my AMEX each month. Usually when I charged something, I sent a bill pay from my bank. So I was doing much like you were, but during that time, rent was not accepted via AMEX. So it was mainly my electric and phone bills. But yes, do what you are most comfortable with and what will make sure that your payment is always made on time after your statement cuts.

Re: Paying Rent with my AMEX. Should I? DONT DO IT!!!!

mross1080 — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 01:47:00 GMT

Ok so I paid it this afternoon. Was just having dinner out with the wife and I get the FR call from amex! What the heck. Not even a day later. I told the women I wasnt submitting to more info than I needed to give for a mortgage and I wasnt willing to sign there form. The women told me I could fax in my last 2 paystubs and 3 months of bank statements. Im going to do that. She also told me that my card was suspended till the review was completed. I then told her that she called me in the middle of taking my wife to a nice dinner and I was going to use my card for dinner but now capital was going to make the money instead of them. I also pointed out that last month along I charged 800 in going out to dinner and capital one was now going to get all of that since they have better rewards and how ridiculous is it that a supposed prime company lost business to a supposed sub prime like cap one. Im so aggravated!

Re: Paying Rent with my AMEX. Should I? DONT DO IT!!!!

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 04:20:54 GMT

Sorry to hear about your bad experience. Just wondering, what type of expense was the rent coded as?

Re: Paying Rent with my AMEX. Should I? DONT DO IT!!!!

mross1080 — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 04:32:57 GMT

I'm not even sure yet it doesnt show on my account yet. It should by sat. I'll let you know when it shows up.

Re: Paying Rent with my AMEX. Should I? DONT DO IT!!!!

UpNUp — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 05:04:20 GMT

@mross1080 wrote:
Ok so I paid it this afternoon. Was just having dinner out with the wife and I get the FR call from amex! What the heck. Not even a day later. I told the women I wasnt submitting to more info than I needed to give for a mortgage and I wasnt willing to sign there form. The women told me I could fax in my last 2 paystubs and 3 months of bank statements. Im going to do that. She also told me that my card was suspended till the review was completed. I then told her that she called me in the middle of taking my wife to a nice dinner and I was going to use my card for dinner but now capital was going to make the money instead of them. I also pointed out that last month along I charged 800 in going out to dinner and capital one was now going to get all of that since they have better rewards and how ridiculous is it that a supposed prime company lost business to a supposed sub prime like cap one. Im so aggravated!

This is absolutely disgusting! You have my sympathies. Why people put up with Amex's famous (or is it infamous?) financial reviews is beyond me. You are right, The Green Card rewards structure stinks. Let me explain. I've had my Green for over three months. In that period I ran over 8K through it. If my figures are correct, I'm able to redeem my points for a whopping $48.00.

I ran everything I could through the Green. If I had rent or a mortgage I would have tried that too. My largest charge was a $1300.00 hotel bill. No problem there or ever.

Amex seems to do things backwards. I'm sure there are those out there who will agree and disagree with me but in my opinion the time for a FR (Amex seems to be paranoid) is at the time of application not sometime down the road after you were approved. Had this happened to me I would have have sent it to the sock drawer. There are much better rewards cards out there. This card just doesn't make cents (pun intended) even if it didn't have an annual fee. I usually run about $25K/year in charges. 25K=$150. In hindsight, I wonder why I even wanted Amex. It may be good for some people but it just doesn't work for me. I will close this one before the next annual fee is due. In the meantime I will use it to pay Amex Credit Secure and go shopping at Cosco once every 2 or 3 months.

Up until March of this year, my husband and I used my Chase Perfect Card (former WAMU, Providian) for everything. In January, he used it to purchase a used truck for $7K. It was denied. I called Chase to inquire why. He said he needed to verify my identity and justifiably so. He asked few questions and then said to submit the charge again, it will be approved. No tax returns. No bank statements. No pay stubs. Plus $70.00 cash back.

I applied for the PenFed Platinum Cash Rewards Visa. Just paid the first statement. They required tax returns and bank statements. I also voluntarily submitted my retirement statements and social security statements. I had no problem with this. This is the way it should be done. At time of application.

My PenFed will be my go to card for a long time.

Amex, follow PenFeds example. You are aggravating too many people. And spoiling their dinner.

Re: Paying Rent with my AMEX. Should I? DONT DO IT!!!!

mross1080 — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 05:16:27 GMT

Thanks for the response. I agree its ridiculous to approve something then when you see a charge that they dont like they ask for more info than a mortgage broker. Its crazy I got a Paypal MC 6 months ago and ran a 2700 dollar charge through it the first month and not a peep. Its just crazy. Well I printed out the last 3 months of my 2 checking accounts that I pay bills with. All 42 pages of it. Im going to fax it over in the morning. Im not sending them my other accounts. They dont need to know everything about me. I only put money into those accts to pay bills but they show 7k a month in deposits so if they give me an issue im closing them.