make mortgage payment with a credit card?

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Acesalad
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make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by Acesalad »

Can you pay your mortgage payment with a credit card? I am thinking of getting a rewards credit card but I think it would only be worth it if my mortgage payments were included in it. Of course I would pay it in full every month.
chaz
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by chaz »

Use the plastic. :)
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123
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by 123 »

You should check to see if your mortgage servicer accepts plastic. I tend to doubt it. Or they may allow plastic with a surcharge, like paying your taxes with plastic. You might not come out ahead.
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tludwig23
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by tludwig23 »

Doubt you'll find a mortgage servicer that accepts plastic, but good luck with that.
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Novine
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by Novine »

Mine doesn't allow this. I don't know if this policy is the mortgage servicer's or the credit card company's or both.
The Wizard
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by The Wizard »

A bank has zero incentive to allow generic credit cards to be used for mortgage payments.
Only possibility would be if you used a CC issued by the same bank that holds your mortgage...
Attempted new signature...
chaz
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by chaz »

The Wizard wrote:A bank has zero incentive to allow generic credit cards to be used for mortgage payments.
Only possibility would be if you used a CC issued by the same bank that holds your mortgage...
That is the secret.
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Polaris
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by Polaris »

I used to use the billpay function of my MBNA credit card to pay my mortgage every month, but that eventually disappeared by mid 2010 after Bank of America acquired MBNA. It didn't earn any cash back, but it allowed me to float my mortgage payment for an extra month when savings accounts were earning 5% interest. :)
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Ice-9
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by Ice-9 »

I have no firsthand experience, but did read a blog article about this topic a couple years ago:
http://www.mymoneyblog.com/paying-your- ... -card.html

I might have tried it with my own mortgage, except mine is with a smaller firm that is not set up to work with https://www.chargesmart.com/

If you do try it, please report back about your experience.
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daytona084
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by daytona084 »

It would also be nice to pay a credit card bill with another credit card. Don't think you will find that either.
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packet
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by packet »

like others here... my mortgage holder does not allow it.
chaz wrote:
The Wizard wrote:A bank has zero incentive to allow generic credit cards to be used for mortgage payments.
Only possibility would be if you used a CC issued by the same bank that holds your mortgage...
That is the secret.
hmmm.... care to expound?

i'm currently poking around the idea of a refinance and my CC issuer has not-so-bad refinance rates (CaptialOne) ... perhaps a reason to seriously consider them?

:beerCheers,
Packet
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Goblue97
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by Goblue97 »

OP, look at American Express Serve as a way to do this. Of course there are limits but we find it handy to serve this purpose.
Jack FFR1846
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by Jack FFR1846 »

There's also the amex target red card that you can load using a credit card and then use the bill pay option on the card to pay the mortgage
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TxAg
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by TxAg »

Mine won't allow it or I would
PennySaved
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by PennySaved »

I use my Fidelity Amex card to load $1000 every month to my Serve account. $1000 is the max amount allowed for loading by credit card every month, at max of $200 per day. I then load $140 more using my checking account debit card and then pay my Wells Fargo mortgage of $1400. This gets me $20 cash back every month on my Fidelity Amex (pays 2% cashback). It is best to pay whole amount of the mortgage amount in one payment. I tried partial mortgage payments before ($1000 from Serve, the rest from checking account) and this resulted in the partial payments being applied to principal only, instead of being recognized as my monthly payment.
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Acesalad
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by Acesalad »

Thanks, for all the great input. I will look into some of these options when I get a chance and report back. One question to the people who suggested the AMEX cards. Don't they have an annual fee that may erase much of the gains I would make?
papoono
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by papoono »

Acesalad wrote:Thanks, for all the great input. I will look into some of these options when I get a chance and report back. One question to the people who suggested the AMEX cards. Don't they have an annual fee that may erase much of the gains I would make?
The 2% Amex Fidelity card has no annual fee, neither does the Amex Serve prepaid card. In order to get the full 2% on the Amex Fidelity card, you'll need to redeem it into a Fidelity brokerage account, otherwise it's like 1% (or something like that, I forget). I use the same strategy as PennySaved. I used to be able to make a partial payment to my mortgage, then email / call them to get it applied to the monthly payment (otherwise by default it goes toward the principal).

Another thing worth looking into is evolvemoney. You can pay various billers using a Discover credit card.
robertalpert
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by robertalpert »

The Wizard wrote:A bank has zero incentive to allow generic credit cards to be used for mortgage payments.
Only possibility would be if you used a CC issued by the same bank that holds your mortgage...
A card affiliated with the mortgage company will probably not work. The bank has a hugh disinsentive to risk transfer of your debt from their own mortgage department to their own credit card department. They would view carrying the card debt as much more risky then carrying the mortgage debt. Better to try with a card not affiliated with your loan company. Do balance transfers get the same points? If so, pay down the mortgage with your non-affiliated card.
EHoops
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by EHoops »

PennySaved wrote:I use my Fidelity Amex card to load $1000 every month to my Serve account. $1000 is the max amount allowed for loading by credit card every month, at max of $200 per day. I then load $140 more using my checking account debit card and then pay my Wells Fargo mortgage of $1400. This gets me $20 cash back every month on my Fidelity Amex (pays 2% cashback). It is best to pay whole amount of the mortgage amount in one payment. I tried partial mortgage payments before ($1000 from Serve, the rest from checking account) and this resulted in the partial payments being applied to principal only, instead of being recognized as my monthly payment.
So, would I need to do these three things to make this strategy work?

1. Open Fidelity® Investment Rewards® American Express® Card
2. Open a Fidelity Brokerage account or Cash Management account (both appear to work, right?)
3. Open an American Express Serve account to be able to pay a mortgage payment

Is this how you work your savvy plan? Is this the triangle? :D

Thanks!
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midareff
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by midareff »

tludwig23 wrote:Doubt you'll find a mortgage servicer that accepts plastic, but good luck with that.

+1, or they may accept it with a 2% or 3% surcharge. Best deal I found is most allow a 10 day lag considered as paid on time and just have them set the payment for the full ten days grace period. If your hitting an Ally .99 savings account for 1/3 of a month your gain is like .33% on the monthly mortgage amount. If your mortgage is $2K monthly you might save yourself a couple of pizzas a year.
papoono
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by papoono »

EHoops wrote:
PennySaved wrote:I use my Fidelity Amex card to load $1000 every month to my Serve account. $1000 is the max amount allowed for loading by credit card every month, at max of $200 per day. I then load $140 more using my checking account debit card and then pay my Wells Fargo mortgage of $1400. This gets me $20 cash back every month on my Fidelity Amex (pays 2% cashback). It is best to pay whole amount of the mortgage amount in one payment. I tried partial mortgage payments before ($1000 from Serve, the rest from checking account) and this resulted in the partial payments being applied to principal only, instead of being recognized as my monthly payment.
So, would I need to do these three things to make this strategy work?

1. Open Fidelity® Investment Rewards® American Express® Card
2. Open a Fidelity Brokerage account or Cash Management account (both appear to work, right?)
3. Open an American Express Serve account to be able to pay a mortgage payment

Is this how you work your savvy plan? Is this the triangle? :D

Thanks!
Hi. Yes that sounds right.

Tips:
* I think there is a $50 signup bonus for the Fidelity Investment rewards card if you spend $500 within the first 60 days. $500 spend is easy, you'll be loading at least $1000 per month (limit $200 per day) onto the serve account (number 3 on your list). Therefore, it's probably a good idea to setup the Serve account first, although 60 days should be more than enough time.
* Once 1. and 2. are setup, you'll need to link them, so that rewards can be redeemed.
* For Amex Serve - depending on which state you are in, they charge a $1 month monthly fee (no fee NY, TX & VT). Sorry forgot to mention this, it's a relatively newish requirement. There are ways to workaround the $1 fee, using direct debit.
* The serve account will probably let you load the first $200 by credit card, but it won't let you do subsequent loads unless you "call in" to Serve's customer service. The will place you on a 3 way call with your credit card issuer (FIA card services in this case). Serve has some security procedures to prevent fraudulent activity. Once everything has been confirmed, you're good to go.
* On the serve account, you can setup auto-reloads from the fidelity credit card, so that it transfers say $200 on the 1st of the month, $200 on the 2nd, .... $200 on the 5th (5 transfers in total).
mikep
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by mikep »

papoono wrote:
Acesalad wrote:Thanks, for all the great input. I will look into some of these options when I get a chance and report back. One question to the people who suggested the AMEX cards. Don't they have an annual fee that may erase much of the gains I would make?
The 2% Amex Fidelity card has no annual fee, neither does the Amex Serve prepaid card. In order to get the full 2% on the Amex Fidelity card, you'll need to redeem it into a Fidelity brokerage account, otherwise it's like 1% (or something like that, I forget). I use the same strategy as PennySaved. I used to be able to make a partial payment to my mortgage, then email / call them to get it applied to the monthly payment (otherwise by default it goes toward the principal).

Another thing worth looking into is evolvemoney. You can pay various billers using a Discover credit card.
I have 2% fidelity amex and just redeem the rewards at a statement credit once they reach 25,000 or $250. Lower amounts are redeemed at less than 2%. No Fidelity account is needed. :D

Amex cards do not earn rewards when loading serve (from various threads). Since Fidelity amex is not actually issued by amex, seems that this would not apply?

Also, why not just use serve to pay another CC or other bills than complicating it paying your mortgage, esp if mortgage > 1000. Obviously it looks suspicious if you pay the same card you load serve with.

Is anyone concerned with the lack of FDIC insurance on the first day $$ hits the serve acct? I see from the terms & conditions that FDIC insurance starts the next day. I imagine you could dispute with CC if amex went insolvent the day you loaded serve but the chance of this happening is extremely remote (amex is probably "too big to fail").
papoono
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by papoono »

EHoops wrote: Is this how you work your savvy plan? Is this the triangle? :D
mikep wrote: Amex cards do not earn rewards when loading serve (from various threads). Since Fidelity amex is not actually issued by amex, seems that this would not apply?
Good point mikep and I'm glad you brought this up. I just checked my rewards history for my Fidelity Amex and it seems that Serve reloads don't even appear. Back to the drawing board!!
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by Jack FFR1846 »

I think the amex target redcard beats the serve. I can load it with $5k a month from my Citi double points card which will give me 2% cash back. I also use the same amex target redcard to buy stuff at target and get a 5% discount right at checkout. So 7% total off for target purchases and 2% for bill pay, transfer to my checking account or (wait for this) paying off my citi card.
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Goblue97
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by Goblue97 »

papoono wrote:
EHoops wrote:
PennySaved wrote:I use my Fidelity Amex card to load $1000 every month to my Serve account. $1000 is the max amount allowed for loading by credit card every month, at max of $200 per day. I then load $140 more using my checking account debit card and then pay my Wells Fargo mortgage of $1400. This gets me $20 cash back every month on my Fidelity Amex (pays 2% cashback). It is best to pay whole amount of the mortgage amount in one payment. I tried partial mortgage payments before ($1000 from Serve, the rest from checking account) and this resulted in the partial payments being applied to principal only, instead of being recognized as my monthly payment.
So, would I need to do these three things to make this strategy work?

1. Open Fidelity® Investment Rewards® American Express® Card
2. Open a Fidelity Brokerage account or Cash Management account (both appear to work, right?)
3. Open an American Express Serve account to be able to pay a mortgage payment

Is this how you work your savvy plan? Is this the triangle? :D

Thanks!
Hi. Yes that sounds right.

Tips:
* I think there is a $50 signup bonus for the Fidelity Investment rewards card if you spend $500 within the first 60 days. $500 spend is easy, you'll be loading at least $1000 per month (limit $200 per day) onto the serve account (number 3 on your list). Therefore, it's probably a good idea to setup the Serve account first, although 60 days should be more than enough time.
* Once 1. and 2. are setup, you'll need to link them, so that rewards can be redeemed.
* For Amex Serve - depending on which state you are in, they charge a $1 month monthly fee (no fee NY, TX & VT). Sorry forgot to mention this, it's a relatively newish requirement. There are ways to workaround the $1 fee, using direct debit.
* The serve account will probably let you load the first $200 by credit card, but it won't let you do subsequent loads unless you "call in" to Serve's customer service. The will place you on a 3 way call with your credit card issuer (FIA card services in this case). Serve has some security procedures to prevent fraudulent activity. Once everything has been confirmed, you're good to go.
* On the serve account, you can setup auto-reloads from the fidelity credit card, so that it transfers say $200 on the 1st of the month, $200 on the 2nd, .... $200 on the 5th (5 transfers in total).



The Amex Serve fee is waived if you load a certain minimum amount each month ($400 or $600 I believe). Bottom line if you load the max ($1k) each month, then the dollar bill fee is waived.
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by bungalow10 »

I have a Serve account and a Fidelity Amex (serviced by FIA).

I load $1000/month from my Amex (5x$200 loads) onto my Serve Account.

Then I withdraw the $1000 from Serve into my bank account. Serve does not require the use of bill pay or sending the payment anywhere to get the cash out.

FIA credits $20 worth of points to my rewards account every month.

THere is no benefit to paying a mortgage via a Serve account. Any rewards can be obtained without that hassle.
An elephant for a dime is only a good deal if you need an elephant and have a dime.
papoono
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by papoono »

bungalow10 wrote:I have a Serve account and a Fidelity Amex (serviced by FIA).

I load $1000/month from my Amex (5x$200 loads) onto my Serve Account.

Then I withdraw the $1000 from Serve into my bank account. Serve does not require the use of bill pay or sending the payment anywhere to get the cash out.

FIA credits $20 worth of points to my rewards account every month.

THere is no benefit to paying a mortgage via a Serve account. Any rewards can be obtained without that hassle.
If you log into your FIA Fidelity rewards account and check your "rewards" tab, do you see the Serve loads receiving the 2%? I recently checked and I don't even see the Serve transactions appearing, which leads me to believe loads are not being credited :(
bungalow10
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by bungalow10 »

papoono wrote:
bungalow10 wrote:I have a Serve account and a Fidelity Amex (serviced by FIA).

I load $1000/month from my Amex (5x$200 loads) onto my Serve Account.

Then I withdraw the $1000 from Serve into my bank account. Serve does not require the use of bill pay or sending the payment anywhere to get the cash out.

FIA credits $20 worth of points to my rewards account every month.

THere is no benefit to paying a mortgage via a Serve account. Any rewards can be obtained without that hassle.
If you log into your FIA Fidelity rewards account and check your "rewards" tab, do you see the Serve loads receiving the 2%? I recently checked and I don't even see the Serve transactions appearing, which leads me to believe loads are not being credited :(
Yep, just verified again (400 points for each $200 Serve transaction). I also realized my husband's rewards weren't being direct deposited into our Fidelity account, so I redeemed $237 in rewards :)

ETA: The ONLY transactions on my DH's Fido Amex are Serve transactions. His regular spending goes on an authorized user card to my Fido Amex.
An elephant for a dime is only a good deal if you need an elephant and have a dime.
papoono
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by papoono »

bungalow10 wrote:
papoono wrote:
bungalow10 wrote:I have a Serve account and a Fidelity Amex (serviced by FIA).

I load $1000/month from my Amex (5x$200 loads) onto my Serve Account.

Then I withdraw the $1000 from Serve into my bank account. Serve does not require the use of bill pay or sending the payment anywhere to get the cash out.

FIA credits $20 worth of points to my rewards account every month.

THere is no benefit to paying a mortgage via a Serve account. Any rewards can be obtained without that hassle.
If you log into your FIA Fidelity rewards account and check your "rewards" tab, do you see the Serve loads receiving the 2%? I recently checked and I don't even see the Serve transactions appearing, which leads me to believe loads are not being credited :(
Yep, just verified again (400 points for each $200 Serve transaction). I also realized my husband's rewards weren't being direct deposited into our Fidelity account, so I redeemed $237 in rewards :)

ETA: The ONLY transactions on my DH's Fido Amex are Serve transactions. His regular spending goes on an authorized user card to my Fido Amex.
Thanks for confirming. I will check again
PennySaved
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by PennySaved »

Goblue97 wrote:
The Amex Serve fee is waived if you load a certain minimum amount each month ($400 or $600 I believe). Bottom line if you load the max ($1k) each month, then the dollar bill fee is waived.
I can confirm that $1 fee is waived when you load $500 per month. I get an email from Serve when this happens. See message below:

Thank you for using American Express Serve. To show our appreciation, we have waived your monthly Account fee. More details are below:

Monthly Account fee: $1.00

Reason for waiver: You have loaded over $500 in the past 30 days

If you have any questions, please call American Express Serve Customer Service at 1-800-954-0559 (24/7).
PennySaved
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by PennySaved »

papoono wrote:
bungalow10 wrote:
papoono wrote:
bungalow10 wrote:I have a Serve account and a Fidelity Amex (serviced by FIA).

I load $1000/month from my Amex (5x$200 loads) onto my Serve Account.

Then I withdraw the $1000 from Serve into my bank account. Serve does not require the use of bill pay or sending the payment anywhere to get the cash out.

FIA credits $20 worth of points to my rewards account every month.

THere is no benefit to paying a mortgage via a Serve account. Any rewards can be obtained without that hassle.
If you log into your FIA Fidelity rewards account and check your "rewards" tab, do you see the Serve loads receiving the 2%? I recently checked and I don't even see the Serve transactions appearing, which leads me to believe loads are not being credited :(
Yep, just verified again (400 points for each $200 Serve transaction). I also realized my husband's rewards weren't being direct deposited into our Fidelity account, so I redeemed $237 in rewards :)

ETA: The ONLY transactions on my DH's Fido Amex are Serve transactions. His regular spending goes on an authorized user card to my Fido Amex.
Thanks for confirming. I will check again
Papoono: The description on the FIA Amex card activity/transaction page for the Serve transaction appears as: AMERICAN EXPRESST PETERSB when it is pending. Once it is no longer pending, it show as: SERVE ENTERPRISE INC 0 ST PETERSBURGFL Also shows up that way on the PDF monthly statement.

As one of the other posters said, the first time you use FIA Amex to load $ on Serve, the transaction goes through. The second time, you will get some kind of message that you have to call Serve, I believe. You call them and then verify that you are authorizing the use of the card for this purpose or something like that. It just a security check to make sure there is no fraud involved. It has been a while for me so I forget the details. But other users on another forum also verified that they had to go through this step. Once past that, you can use it repeatedly with no issues.
PennySaved
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by PennySaved »

papoono wrote:
bungalow10 wrote:I have a Serve account and a Fidelity Amex (serviced by FIA).

I load $1000/month from my Amex (5x$200 loads) onto my Serve Account.

Then I withdraw the $1000 from Serve into my bank account. Serve does not require the use of bill pay or sending the payment anywhere to get the cash out.

FIA credits $20 worth of points to my rewards account every month.

THere is no benefit to paying a mortgage via a Serve account. Any rewards can be obtained without that hassle.
If you log into your FIA Fidelity rewards account and check your "rewards" tab, do you see the Serve loads receiving the 2%? I recently checked and I don't even see the Serve transactions appearing, which leads me to believe loads are not being credited :(

You should see the rewards for Serve under the "Rewards" tab. Mine usually take 2 days to show up after I have loaded to Serve.
oldguy
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by oldguy »

Somewhat related - i have those 1% cashback Discover and AE Cards and use the cashback at Amazon. My DirecTv bill is bundled with landline phone and internet and i pay it with Discover card. I could pay my electric bill same way ... both are auto-billing, don't have to login or anything. I just never took time to set electric up that way.
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tarheel
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Re: make mortgage payment with a credit card?

Post by tarheel »

Thanks for the info guys. I'm linking up my Fidelity AMEX to the Serve account this month.

I had one question - has anyone had their SO open up a second Serve account of their own to move through $2000/monthly total to get around the $1000/monthly CC transfer limit per account? The linked CC and bank accounts would be the same, but there would be two separate Serve accounts - we would each have our own.

Thanks.
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