So I have the Elan MCP (the Valley variety).
PSE&G charged on that card does trigger the 5% Utilities (making a known statement 
).
Tried paying a portion of my PSE&G using PLASTIQ to see if it would trigger the 5% utilities as well. From what I can tell (keeping in mind between this site and USB Cash+ both are not user friendly when it comes to figuring out what you get CB wise, USB being worse IMO) it didn't trigger the 5% CB, but it did trigger the "1% Everything Else" category.
Has anyone else noticed this as well?
@Remedios wrote:@Wavester64 is direct payment not an option because of the fee for credit card payments?
If so, how much is the fee? Is it percentage of the amount to be paid or set fee per transaction?
I was checking this just for DP sake, I usually pay my PSE&G directly from my checking account with no fees. But I wanted to see if I could take advantage of the 5% CB with this card. Seeing that Plastiq charges 2.85% fee, I thought maybe the payment would trigger the 5%, thus making 2.15% CB, but it doesn't appear to. If you pay PSE&G via a CC, they go thru a company called SpeedPay, which charges a $3.95 fee, which appears to be on any amount, though I can't say for sure since I never used them before.
@Anonymous wrote:If you have Paypal, you can try using Paypal Pay My Bill, which does include at least some PSE&G, linking to Elan card, and this should be free.
Following EXTENSIVE experiments (one each) by @UncleB and myself, this should also get the full 5%.
Thanks @Anonymous , I'll have to give it a try
@Anonymous wrote:
@ocheosa wrote:I use Elan MCP direct pay for both PSE&G 3.95 flat fee and NJ American Water 1.95 flat fee. Both allow overpayment so I usually pay $250-300. I've paid as much as $800 on PSE&G and it was still the flat 3.95 fee. Sprint/Tmobile also allows overpayment with no fee ; and having a credit balance does not effect auto pay or employer/organization discounts. Utilities/Phone/Cable are great sources for cashback and sub spend.Cha-Ching!
And at the risk of being overzealous as a newly converted, check to see if these payees are in Paypal Billing and pay them using that linked to MCP. Then you can avoid the fee entirely, and pay only what is needed. Use this while it lasts!
@Anonymous thank you. I'll take a look when I next have a payment due. I actually prefer prepaying household expenses (qtr), insurance/taxes (ann) and usually tie them to a bonus promo when possible. Love it! Credit cards have certainly come a looooong way since my 1987 introduction.