Done with Plastiq

[Anonymous]

I had it all figured out. Was using BOA CR mastercard once a quarter and planned to use BOA PR visa the other 2 months in a quarter to pay my rent through Plastiq. Plastiq's fee was 2.5% when I set this up about 4 months go. Rent is almost $2,200/m. The true beauty of this situation is that rent/mortgage payments are categorized as travel. So, in using BOA CR with PH status and choosing 3% category of travel I would NET: 5.25% - 2.5% = 2.75%. Which means I was getting paid around $60 just to pay rent per quarter! The caveat is that it could only be once per quarter since I would be bumping up against BOA CR max spend of $2,500 per quarter. That's where the BOA PR comes in.

For BOA PR, travel spend gets 3.5% cash back with platinum honors status. So, for the other months in a quarter, I would NET: 3.5% - 2.5% = 1%. Would make about $22, not as much, but still getting paid to pay rent. All told about $104 cash back per quarter from paying a requisite bill, not from shopping or discretionary spending. I was winning and thought I had found a nice little hustle.

The house of cards (credit or otherwise) is starting to topple. I guess it was only a matter of time until someone got wise to the game. Plastiq has raised their fee to 2.85%. My property management company does allow credit card payments and their fee is 2.95%. So, yes, I can still come out ahead just charging through my rental company. And the 0.1% loss between Plastiq and my rental agency will be nullified by less hassle, i.e. worry about losing the check in the mail or if it will arrive by payment due date. So, Plastiq, I bid farewell.

[K-in-Boston]

Does making the payment directly to your property management company also code as travel, though?

If the old structure was 5.25% rewards - 2.5% fee = 2.75% net for Plastiq, then the new structure for Plastiq would be 5.25% rewards - 2.85% fee = 2.40% net on CR.  But if your property management company isn't coding as travel, then you'd be looking at best case 2.625% rewards - 2.95% fee = -0.325% net by using PR, right?  What did I miss?  Plastiq also offers fee free dollars pretty regularly.

If your property management company accepts Apple/Samsung/Google Pay, you may also consider the US Bank Altitude Reserve; 4.50% rewards (assuming used for RTR or portal) - 2.95% fee = 1.55% net for the 8 months you don't use CR.

[lhcole77]

Awwwwwwww, yes. I remember the good ol' days of earning 1 - 1.5% on monthly rent paid through Plastiq.

I miss those days.

Don't miss trying to explain why I was doing it to "credit normies" instead of folks like us.

They never did quite understand 

[UpperNwGuy]

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@lhcole77 wrote:

Awwwwwwww, yes. I remember the good ol' days of earning 1 - 1.5% on monthly rent paid through Plastiq.

I miss those days.

Don't miss trying to explain why I was doing it to "credit normies" instead of folks like us.

They never did quite understand 

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I am proud to be a credit normie.  I guess you're now one, too.  And, yes, I really did undertand.

[Anonymous]

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@K-in-Boston wrote:

Does making the payment directly to your property management company also code as travel, though?

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I assumed it did but I don’t know. Didn’t think it made a difference to coding whether Plastiq pays my rent or I pay directly. I haven’t paid them directly with credit cards, just ACH transfers from checking account and most recently Plastiq. I guess I could test it with the PR card. Yes, both cards would yield a net LOSS, but the CR more so if neither code travel. In which case I would come crawling back to Plastiq and pretend like my little tirade never happened. 

Unfortunately, my property mgmt company currently only accepts e-check, the 4 major plastics (or metal these days) and paper (cash/check). Will keep the AR in mind though in case they change their payment methods or I move. Thanks for the tip!

[ccquest]

One is how Plastiq codes it and the other is the rental payment site, they could be very different. I'm curious to know how mine would work out paying directly with BoA though. They charge 2.99%, but if I could get 3.3% with my Cash Rewards through the Online Shopping category, I'd come out ahead slightly and save a whopping $3.25 each month on rent.

Might try it out towards the end of the year because I'm going to use it to meet my other card SUB before the end of September!

[Anonymous]

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@lhcole77 wrote:

Don't miss trying to explain why I was doing it to "credit normies" instead of folks like us.

They never did quite understand 

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Alas, I know my days are numbered as part of the resistance. Soon, I too will join rank as credit normie. Comfortable. Predictable. Constantly trying to milk out an upper hand is getting old 

[Anonymous]

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@ccquest wrote:
One is how Plastiq codes it and the other is the rental payment site, they could be very different. I'm curious to know how mine would work out paying directly with BoA though. They charge 2.99%, but if I could get 3.3% with my Cash Rewards through the Online Shopping category, I'd come out ahead slightly and save a whopping $3.25 each month on rent.

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I see, and if that’s the case, I will have to stick with Plastiq. 

I haven’t had much luck with non-retail online purchases (bills) coding as online shopping except for Netflix subscription for some reason. Even some retail sites don’t trigger the online  shopping code properly and I have to call in and plead my case. BOA seems to favor brand name sites like Amazon, Target.com, etc for its online category from what I can tell.

[Anonymous]

I got an email a few days ago about their fee going up, didn't bother to say how much though.

2.80% is just enough to not even bother with them anymore in some instances, looks like I will be using them less now though. 

My rental portal charge a flat $38 for whatever the payment is, so Plastiq is still cheaper twenty cents. lol

Or $19 if i pay only half via Plastiq and the other half from elsewhere, though that kind of defeats the purpose...

Probably still use them for my car payment as it only increases by $1.27. 

[red259]

Yea I think I'm pretty much done with plastiq. Maybe if I need to use it to make a signup bonus and my largest available expenses don't take credit cards or maybe in the exception case that I am going for some spend incentive. Other than that I don't see the numbers making sense for me.