Hi everyone,

How are ya. I’m wondering if anyone has some suggestions regarding the following issue: after some online research, I recently acquired a Chase Freedom credit card due to very positive reviews regarding its flexible and beneficial rewards program. In order to accumulate as many rewards points as I can, I have changed the auto-pay settings on nearly all of my monthly bills to now withdraw my payments from the Chase Freedom credit card account (instead of my Chase checking account, which I had done previously). That got me to thinking….I wonder if there’s a way to somehow pay my monthly rent with the Chase Freedom credit card? This would allow me to accumulate even more credit card rewards points. Could anyone suggest a strategy on how to do this? I currently pay $1,400 per month - in the form of a paper check linked to my Chase checking account - to my landlord. I was wondering - does the credit card company issue some sort of check or money order that I could pay my rent with? Is there a multi-step process that would allow me to “re-route” the money? Any other ideas? And of course, I am very aware and careful to pay my monthly credit card balance in full to avoid any interest fees, late fees and poor credit scores.

Many thanks in advance for any feedback,
Reno

I'd be interested to see if there are any real ways to do this, but I think the answer is "no" unless your landlord accepts credit card payments.

The obvious method of taking a cash advance from the card to pay the rent won't work, because you don't earn rewards on cash advances (at least not on any card I've ever seen), usually interest starts accumulating immediately on cash advances (no grace period) which would eat up the "savings" from rewards, and usually there is a percentage fee (3-5% for cash advances) that would also eat up the rewards.

You might be able to get your landlord to start accepting credit cards in exchange for a 5% higher rent. With the new card readers from Square for example it is very easy and convenient.

The landlord will have to pay merchant fees for taking cards so you should expect to pay a little more to cover that.

I take credit cards for rent on our short term rental. Visa, MC, and Discover have no issue at all with it. American Express has some special rules so it is hard to do it with them, though not impossible.

I've seen the commercials for Square, but never used it so I don't really know much about it. Does it work well?

Though 5% higher rent is probably a worse deal than the 1 or 2 % rewards you'd get on the card.

Yup! I also just tried googling the OP's issue and found another site called "Williampaid," but it has the same issue, as it appears it charges a 2.95% transaction fee. People commenting about that site had a fair number of complaints. Hopefully, the forum will let me post this link: http://millionmilesecrets.com/2012/01/2 ... edit-card/

That's pretty much the reason it hard to do this. The rewards are funded out of the interchange fees. Those fees are charged to the merchant, typically. There is little reason for a merchant with a locked-in revenue stream, like a landlord, to just eat those fees. Almost any third party processor would pass the fees on to the payer, negating the rewards. It's possible that you might find a third-party processor that will temporarily eat the fees themselves, essentially as a loss leader, but don't count on such promotions lasting indefinitely.

you can also buy reload packs at an office supply store for about $4 fee/$500. Load onto a prepaid debit card. Take to any fine financial institution which issues money orders and accepts pin based debit cards and get a money order (I don't gamble, but I would bet there would be one in just about every town with a population greater than 1000 ). $1000 rent is $8.70 in "fees" or 0.87%. I move between $6-$8k/month and get 99% of it back. Plus my normal spend on top of that. I avg more than 1000 pts/day outside signup bonuses.

Method two, and untested by me, is the new bluebird. Supposedly, if you hook up to bank account, you can do online bill pay or something of the like. MMS also has a post cleverly titled, "how to pay your rent or mortgage with bluebird" or something similar, you get the gist.

Easy peasy. Next question.

That's some dedication Bichon

Thanks. I like to travel. And I like to pay relatively nothing to do so. I may jump through hoops like a trained circus animal, but it is well worth it. Let's put it this way, people at the retailers I frequent know me by name

We have a regular old merchant account and take cards online or by telephone or mail so i am nit familiar with square. I've seen the commercials and know others who like it.

I agree about the 5 percent but then i routinely forego a 4 percent for paying cash instead of card for gas so go figure...

It is not a big deal for the landlord to set up so it could be an option if they are willing.

another option is to have the landlord set up an amazon payments account. Each account can send AND receive up to $1000 each month. So, if the landlord has a spouse/partner, they can in theory get up to $2000 each month. You send with a credit card, no fee. You'll also need a second account as well. Or, you can send $1000 through AP each month and send the rest in via check, money order etc. Every member of my family has an AP account...

BTW, 1pt/$1 won't get you anywhere fast. You probably think you'll get $150-$175 worth of gift cards/yr this way. 5pts/$ is more like it. And about 75% of my spend is at at least the 5pts/$ level.