topic Re: Paying tuition on AMEX for miles or points. in Credit Cards

Paying tuition on AMEX for miles or points.

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 00:07:14 GMT

Would you esteemed members and card holders do such a thing? The bill would be small, maybe $1800 or so and paid as soon as it posts. Does anyone think it would draw scrutiny and possible (...)? Has anyone done this before and what was the outcome if any?

Thanks!

Re: Paying tuition on AMEX for miles or points.

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 00:24:11 GMT

I say do it. If it is out of the ordinary you may want to do a charge inquiry using check my spending ability.

Re: Paying tuition on AMEX for miles or points.

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 00:45:34 GMT

I haven't done it, but if you're credit card is gonna allow you to do it and you're actually going to be able to pay it off, then go for it. I do the same thing for small bills and pay it off the next day just to get those quick rewards.

Re: Paying tuition on AMEX for miles or points.

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 00:54:26 GMT

I was going to do this, but my school doesn't accept AMEX. Like you, my tuition bill was pretty small, only about $1200

Re: Paying tuition on AMEX for miles or points.

flyingmd — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 01:05:16 GMT

My daughters school accepts Amex so you bet I did. 18543 points per semester!!! I dont believe there is any reason Amex would say you can't.

Re: Paying tuition on AMEX for miles or points.

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 01:52:49 GMT

The only catch is if there is a convenience fee for paying with a credit card rather than a check. My alma mater (a large state school) charged a rather large percentage to pay with a credit card which would far outweight the benefit of any points.

Re: Paying tuition on AMEX for miles or points.

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 02:14:41 GMT

I also considered doing this. However, my school charges a convenience fee for using a credit card, which would negate any rewards points I would earn.

My apartment has a similar fee. I really wish I could charge these rent/tuition as they are my largest expenses....

Re: Paying tuition on AMEX for miles or points.

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 02:42:41 GMT

Thanks for the input--keep it coming. I go to a large institution in philadelphia and though I haven't checked, I'm unaware of a convenience fee. Even if it was nominal, say less than $20, it would, still be worth it. I'm at the company and IRS limits for tuition reimbursement, so this class is out of pocket. Since im trying to rack up points/miles, this bill would give me a nice bump. Fees side, my next decision is using the Green or Blue vs. the Delta Gold. Which would yield the best return in rewards per dollar spent.

Re: Paying tuition on AMEX for miles or points.

Walt_K — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 03:58:12 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Thanks for the input--keep it coming. I go to a large institution in philadelphia and though I haven't checked, I'm unaware of a convenience fee. Even if it was nominal, say less than $20, it would, still be worth it. I'm at the company and IRS limits for tuition reimbursement, so this class is out of pocket. Since im trying to rack up points/miles, this bill would give me a nice bump. Fees side, my next decision is using the Green or Blue vs. the Delta Gold. Which would yield the best return in rewards per dollar spent.

Definitely check the fee, you might find it is higher than that and not worth it. Assuming it is worth it, I'd put it on Green before Delta Gold. MR points can be instantly transferred to Delta, so not seeing how you get any benefit out of using Delta instead of Green. More flexibility with MR and there are often transfer bonuses as well. I don't know how Blue works so can't comment on that.

Re: Paying tuition on AMEX for miles or points.

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 05:45:08 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Thanks for the input--keep it coming. I go to a large institution in philadelphia and though I haven't checked, I'm unaware of a convenience fee. Even if it was nominal, say less than $20, it would, still be worth it. I'm at the company and IRS limits for tuition reimbursement, so this class is out of pocket. Since im trying to rack up points/miles, this bill would give me a nice bump. Fees side, my next decision is using the Green or Blue vs. the Delta Gold. Which would yield the best return in rewards per dollar spent.

I'm not sure what school you go to, but I did a few minutes of research on largest Philadelphia area schools. Each one of them charges a convenience fee:

Temple - 2.75%
http://www.temple.edu/bursar/current/makingpayments.htm

St. Joe's - *Service fee applied by 3rd party
http://www.sju.edu/resources/studentservices/payment/creditcard.html

Villanova - 2-3%
http://www.villanova.edu/finance/bursar/faq.htm#7

Penn - 2.0% (It appears they only accept Amex)
http://www.sfs.upenn.edu/paymybill/index.htm

Drexel - 2.75%
http://www.drexel.edu/bursar/

LaSalle - 2.75%
http://www.lasalle.edu/financeadmin/bursar/Tuition_and_Fees_Payment_Policies.pdf

Since you said large, I stopped at the biggest.

Re: Paying tuition on AMEX for miles or points.

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:46:31 GMT

Walt_K, the Blue has MR points too. It's the no-frills revolver that I got for the MR points. However, I was also thinking similarly about putting it on the Green rather than any other.

Stan_the_man, you've nailed the big ones and the one I attend is on that list

Assuming my bill comes in around 1800, the convenience fee would run me $49.50 which isn't terrible bad, but certainly isn't cheap. I can include that in my education expenses when filing 2011 income taxes--at least I think I can.

Re: Paying tuition on AMEX for miles or points.

Walt_K — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 13:18:56 GMT

It's not worth it. Just put the $49.50 aside toward whatever you are planning to redeem your MR points for. For example, if you plan to use MR points for travel, create a savings account for travel and tuck the $49.50 away there.

Re: Paying tuition on AMEX for miles or points.

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:29:14 GMT

Good point, but would it be safe to assume they'd roll that into the bill for the few extra points? If hate to write a check and get nothing in return, ya know?

Re: Paying tuition on AMEX for miles or points.

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:30:45 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Good point, but would it be safe to assume they'd roll that into the bill for the few extra points? If hate to write a check and get nothing in return, ya know?

Penn said I'd be a seperate charge. St. Joe's said it was charged by the vendor (didn't say if it was directly part of the bill thought). You'd have to ask the rest to find out how they deal with it.

Re: Paying tuition on AMEX for miles or points.

Walt_K — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:35:43 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Good point, but would it be safe to assume they'd roll that into the bill for the few extra points? If hate to write a check and get nothing in return, ya know?

Not sure what you mean. Are you asking whether you will get an additional 49 points because of the fee? Still not worth it. Maybe if you are right near an award that you have an immediate need to take. For example, I could see if you needed 1800 more points to book some travel, it might be worth it, but you're paying 2.7 cents per point. Reading on the travel blogs, I see MR points valued at about 2.2 or 2.3 cents. While that's not gospel, it seems like you are overpaying.

This is how points cards get you in trouble. Sometimes you just need to write the check.

Re: Paying tuition on AMEX for miles or points.

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:39:45 GMT

@Walt_K wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Good point, but would it be safe to assume they'd roll that into the bill for the few extra points? If hate to write a check and get nothing in return, ya know?
Not sure what you mean. Are you asking whether you will get an additional 49 points because of the fee? Still not worth it. Maybe if you are right near an award that you have an immediate need to take. For example, I could see if you needed 1800 more points to book some travel, it might be worth it, but you're paying 2.7 cents per point. Reading on the travel blogs, I see MR points valued at about 2.2 or 2.3 cents. While that's not gospel, it seems like you are overpaying.

This is how points cards get you in trouble. Sometimes you just need to write the check.

I think OP is asking whether the fee would be part of the same charge so that he could deduct it as an education expense on his taxes. If you can, the points would come at a discounted cost.

In any case, I would never recommend paying more to receive points unless you could immediately use them and their effective value was higher than the cost of accuring them.

Re: Paying tuition on AMEX for miles or points.

llecs — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:11:39 GMT

Our kids are in private school (4th grade, 1st, and Pre-K...just started today!) and I use Amex for their tuition bill. The fee is only $8.95 per CC transaction in our case and IMO is worth it. I can't remember when we last wrote a check to anyone.

Re: Paying tuition on AMEX for miles or points.

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:12:30 GMT

I just got my bill; $1988 for tuition and university fees and $54.67 for the service charge. The total charged to the card would be $2042.67, of course, immediately PIFed when it posted. So, to those following this thread, for 2042 MR points or Sky pesos, is it still not worth it?

Re: Paying tuition on AMEX for miles or points.

Walt_K — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 16:15:08 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I just got my bill; $1988 for tuition and university fees and $54.67 for the service charge. The total charged to the card would be $2042.67, of course, immediately PIFed when it posted. So, to those following this thread, for 2042 MR points or Sky pesos, is it still not worth it?

According to this blog post, with Delta's current promo, you can buy 100,000 miles for $1100. I haven't researched how, but you could probably find out looking around travel blogs and/or Flyertalk. In any event, buying directly from Delta, sounds like you can buy at 1.1 cent per mile. You are going to pay 2.67 cents per point for these MR points.

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/onemileatatime/2011/08/29/great-award-availability-to-iceland-on-delta-next-summer/

Re: Paying tuition on AMEX for miles or points.

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:11:32 GMT

According to Plastic IQ's analysis, membership reward points are worth $0.0125 per point

http://www.plasticiq.com/blog/what-is-the-value-of-american-express-membership-rewards-points/

Skymiles are worth $0.0111 per mile

http://www.plasticiq.com/blog/value-of-delta-skymiles-points/

So most of the time you are forking over 2% in fees to get a bit better than 1% in rewards. The net lost is about 1%.