We love to earn miles and points on all of our purchases. However, some vendors don’t accept credit cards. Or when they do, you’re charged massive fees. Plastiq is a great option to pay your bills for a reasonable fee so you can earn additional rewards and meet credit card minimum spend requirements. For a limited time, Plastiq is reducing fees to 2.25% on up to three payments. Did you get this email?
Use my Plastiq referral link to sign up and receive some fee-free dollars so you can make a payment without any fees. After signing up for an account, you should start receiving targeted promotions like this.
In This Post
What is Plastiq?
Plastiq is a bill payment service that allows you to pay eligible bills with a credit card. When you use this service, your credit card is charged and payment is sent to your vendors. Bills are paid via ACH or a paper check, depending on who the vendor is.
What bills can you pay with Plastiq?
There are a lot of bills that you can pay with Plastiq. I’ve been paying our home mortgage, rental property mortgages, and contractor payments using Plastiq. These payments rack up points and help meet minimum spending requirements on new credit cards.
Here is a sample of the payments you can make with Plastiq:
- auto lease or loan payments
- personal loans
- business loans
- tuition payments
- rent and mortgage payments
- property taxes
- federal, state, and local taxes
- utilities
For a complete list of which payments can be made by which type of card, click here to view the latest matrix as of November 2019.
Why pay with Plastiq?
Yes, Plastiq charges a fee to make payments. The normal fee is 2.5% of your payment amount. For many people, it doesn’t make sense to use Plastiq.
For example, if your credit card earns 2% cash back, why would you pay a 2.5% fee? You’d be losing money.
Earning on everyday purchases
When you’re using a rewards credit card that earns valuable miles, points, or cash back, Plastiq could be a good option. Just make sure that the rewards are worth more than the 2.5% fee.
I have the Alliant Cashback Visa Signature Credit Card, which earns 3% cash back on the first $10,000 in purchases each month. By maxing out the rewards limit, I’ll make $300 in cash back versus $250 in fees, which means I come out ahead by $50.
Meeting minimum spending requirements
Spending enough to hit minimum requirements on a new card can be difficult. Minimum spending requirements can be $3,000 to $5,000 for some of the best rewards credit cards.
You can make payments with Plastiq to meet those minimum spending requirements. Even though you’re paying a fee, the rewards make it worthwhile.
For example, the Capital One Venture Card offers a welcome bonus of 50,000 miles that is worth $500. The minimum spending requirement is $3,000 within three months. If you paid bills worth $3,000 through Plastiq, you’d pay $75 in fees.
Wouldn’t it be worth it to spend $75 to receive $500?
Having extra time to pay a bill
For consumers and business owners, sometimes you need some extra time to pay a bill. The bill is due, but you don’t have the money. Yet. You’re waiting for the next paycheck, a bonus, or payment from a client.
You can pay the bill today using Plastiq so your vendor isn’t upset. Then, you can use the credit card’s billing cycle to give you extra time to receive the money and pay that bill.
If you time the transaction right, you might have 50 to 60 days before you need to pay off your credit card. To achieve this extra float, make the payment right after the statement closes. It will be another month before the next statement hits. Plus, most credit cards offer around 25 days to pay a bill from the date of the statement.
Voila! Almost 60 days of interest-free financing.
All you had to do was pay the 2.5% fee to Plastiq. That is much better than getting a payday loan, upsetting your vendor, or stressing out how you’re going to pay the bill.
Plastiq promotion: Fees reduced to 2.25%
For a limited time, Plastiq is reducing its fees by 10%. Instead of the normal 2.5%, the fees are reduced to 2.25% of the transaction amount.
The details of this promotion are as follows:
- Promotion good on up to three payments.
- Customer can make three one-time payments or set recurring payments series. Discount will be applied towards the first three payments in the series.
- Payments may be up to $10,000 each.
- Transactions must be processed by 11:59 PM Eastern on March 31, 2020.
- Does not apply to payments scheduled prior to March 13, 2020.
- Promotion applied towards Plastiq base fee.
- Wire transfer, cross-border, expedited delivery, or other fees are not affected.
- Rejected, returned, edited, canceled, altered, or the rescheduled payments with this promotion applied will forfeit the service fee rate of 2.25%.
The Bald Thoughts
If you need to pay some bills and the vendor does not accept credit cards, you should open an account with Plastiq. Use my Plastiq referral link to receive some fee-free dollars which offset some of your fees. You can use these payments to earn miles, points, or cash back. And it is a great way to meet minimum spend requirements or give yourself extra time to pay off the bill.
Did you receive this targeted promotion from Plastiq? Share your thoughts on this promotion below.