BoA BillPay with CC

Anonymous · ‎07-25-2009

Just an FYI fact I discovered only this morning.

I was using my BoA BillPay and just realized that in my "funding sources" it allows me to use my BoA Visa.

I'm not sure that I would ever use this because it doesn't count toward rewards, but I was not previously aware that BillPay could be funded with anything other than a deposit account.

The truly interesting thing about this is it appears it does not incur a cash advance fee??? Here is the notation for using the CC as BillPay funding source:

1 Bill payment transactions made using a credit card Pay From account are not processed on the Visa or MasterCard networks. These transactions are Purchases which enjoy a grace period (if any) under the terms of your Credit Card Agreement. These bill payment transactions do not earn rewards or points and have limited dispute rights, such as whether the payment was properly made. You cannot dispute the goods or services already purchased.

Message Edited by txjohn on 07-25-2009 05:00 AM

Message Edited by txjohn on 07-25-2009 05:04 AM

Anonymous · ‎07-25-2009

Thanks for telling us about this. Until now, I've used BillPay only to pay my BOA credit cards. After reading your post, I poked around a bit & learned that (1) I can add "Pentagon FCU Visa/Mastercard" as a payee & then (2) use BillPay to pay my PenFed Visa, using my BOA Visa or MC as a funding source.

So I can use one CC to PIF another CC without incurring interest expense - as long as I then PIF the 2nd CC. That's wild!

Thanks to you, I can now use my BOA cards to pay local utilities - my water company, for example - that either don't accept CCs or that charge fees for their use.

This is very useful information! Thanks again for sharing it.

pattycake · ‎07-25-2009

Isn't there a fee for bill pay? I think there is a minimal one, but I may be thinking Chase.

pattycake's FICOs: 6/2/10 - TU: 708; EX: ???; EQ: 749

Anonymous · ‎07-25-2009

No, the service is free - at least for now.

Anonymous · ‎07-25-2009

@Anonymous wrote:
Thanks for telling us about this. Until now, I've used BillPay only to pay my BOA credit cards. After reading your post, I poked around a bit & learned that (1) I can add "Pentagon FCU Visa/Mastercard" as a payee & then (2) use BillPay to pay my PenFed Visa, using my BOA Visa or MC as a funding source.

So I can use one CC to PIF another CC without incurring interest expense - as long as I then PIF the 2nd CC. That's wild!

Thanks to you, I can now use my BOA cards to pay local utilities - my water company, for example - that either don't accept CCs or that charge fees for their use.

This is very useful information! Thanks again for sharing it.

Hey Jim,

That was my thinking. I like credit where I can make money with it, either by grace period and floating the funds 30 to 40 days, or through rewards (or both) and now possibly to use CC as a BillPay source which could extend a free float (if there truly are no fees associated and they treat BillPay truly as a "purchase") then why not make the most use of the credit extended.

Now, would this invite AA on the part of BoA? That is the question to ask. Is it like offering you to "skip a payment" and then AA if you do? Would they view the use of CC as a BillPay souce in any negative way?

I am going to dig a little deeper, just because I like to know what I can and cannot do with my resources

Lel · ‎07-25-2009

txjohn wrote:

Just an FYI fact I discovered only this morning.

I was using my BoA BillPay and just realized that in my "funding sources" it allows me to use my BoA Visa.

I'm not sure that I would ever use this because it doesn't count toward rewards, but I was not previously aware that BillPay could be funded with anything other than a deposit account.

The truly interesting thing about this is it appears it does not incur a cash advance fee??? Here is the notation for using the CC as BillPay funding source:

1 Bill payment transactions made using a credit card Pay From account are not processed on the Visa or MasterCard networks. These transactions are Purchases which enjoy a grace period (if any) under the terms of your Credit Card Agreement. These bill payment transactions do not earn rewards or points and have limited dispute rights, such as whether the payment was properly made. You cannot dispute the goods or services already purchased.

I noticed the same thing a few months back with B of A Bill Pay. It actually gave the option to pay my HELOC (with another bank) using my B of A credit card, which I found to be quite remarkable. Intrigued as I was by the ability to effectively defer payment for nearly a month (in the sense that it doesn't come out of my bank account), I exchanged some emails with B of A to see if this really was true. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that since the credit card payment came up, I can use it if I wish. And yes, it is treated as a credit card purchase, not a cash advance or balance transfer or any other transaction that has less favorable terms or associated fees.

I haven't tried it yet. I'm curious to find out whether the payment would really be ineligible for rewards.

Anonymous · ‎07-25-2009

@Anonymous wrote:
Now, would this invite AA on the part of BoA? That is the question to ask. Is it like offering you to "skip a payment" and then AA if you do? Would they view the use of CC as a BillPay souce in any negative way?

Hmm. Good question. I suspect that BOA hopes that after using one of their CCs as a funding source to pay your bills, you'll then fail to PIF their card, in which case they (BOA) will earn some extra interest income.

Suppose, for example, that you use your BOA Visa to PIF your Discover card. Then, for whatever reason, you don't PIF your BOA Visa. If that happens, you've effectively transferred your Discover balance to your BOA card - except that you don't get the promotional APR that you'd get if you'd done a conventional BT. That's bad for you but good for BOA.

Assuming that you're disciplined enough to always PIF your BOA card, the only downside that I can see is that your utilization will stay higher for a longer time. Assume, for example, that your latest Discover statement shows a balance of $1000 with payment due on 8/15. Normally, you'd ACH that amount to Discover on 8/15 from your checking account. Instead, you use your BOA Visa to pay that $1000 to Discover. So now that $1000 balance will continue to report until you PIF your BOA Visa, which may not happen until, say, 9/25. That might lower your scores by a few points.

A good, low-risk test might be to use my BOA Visa to pay my Alliant Visa. My latest Alliant statement shows a balance of $6.65, with payment due on 8/8. Since there's not much money at issue here, I'll pay this from my BOA Visa & see what happens.

Anonymous · ‎07-25-2009

@Lel wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Just an FYI fact I discovered only this morning.

I was using my BoA BillPay and just realized that in my "funding sources" it allows me to use my BoA Visa.

I'm not sure that I would ever use this because it doesn't count toward rewards, but I was not previously aware that BillPay could be funded with anything other than a deposit account.

The truly interesting thing about this is it appears it does not incur a cash advance fee??? Here is the notation for using the CC as BillPay funding source:

1 Bill payment transactions made using a credit card Pay From account are not processed on the Visa or MasterCard networks. These transactions are Purchases which enjoy a grace period (if any) under the terms of your Credit Card Agreement. These bill payment transactions do not earn rewards or points and have limited dispute rights, such as whether the payment was properly made. You cannot dispute the goods or services already purchased.

I noticed the same thing a few months back with B of A Bill Pay. It actually gave the option to pay my HELOC (with another bank) using my B of A credit card, which I found to be quite remarkable. Intrigued as I was by the ability to effectively defer payment for nearly a month (in the sense that it doesn't come out of my bank account), I exchanged some emails with B of A to see if this really was true. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that since the credit card payment came up, I can use it if I wish. And yes, it is treated as a credit card purchase, not a cash advance or balance transfer or any other transaction that has less favorable terms or associated fees.

I haven't tried it yet. I'm curious to find out whether the payment would really be ineligible for rewards.

I'm sure there are NO rewards, because BillPay does not use the Visa/MC network and they are not charging a cash advance/BT fee, and they are not receiving a merchant discount. There would be no place for the reward to come from. Rewards come from a combination of merchant fees, annual fees and other misc fees. If those fees are not charged, they won't pay rewards.

Anonymous · ‎07-26-2009

Update: From what I can tell, you can only use your BoA CC as a BillPay funding source to pay other credit cards. And not all CC's at that. PenFed, Chase, NFCU, CapOne, Discover all show it as available source. Alliant, Juni Biz, CareCredit do not. My electric and utilities do not.

Anonymous · ‎07-26-2009

@Anonymous wrote:
Update: From what I can tell, you can only use your BoA CC as a BillPay funding source to pay other credit cards. And not all CC's at that. PenFed, Chase, NFCU, CapOne, Discover all show it as available source. Alliant, Juni Biz, CareCredit do not. My electric and utilities do not.

Thanks for the clarification. I was wondering. Based on what I have set up in there my BofA CC is not available as a funding source for anything. Must be some kind of code on the payee side.