i need to get a minimum spend so I use the actual credit card in charge smart for my mortage directl

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[Disclosure:  I earn a referral for the links to the Chase Ink Bold , Chase Ink Plus the American Express hotels on the san antonio riverwalk Blue Cash Preferred card.  These cards may make it possible to earn points or make money by paying your mortgage, student loans, hotels on the san antonio riverwalk and car loans.  I don't have any affiliation with ChargeSmart .  As always, Emily I are very grateful for your support!]
I just earned 427 Ultimate Rewards Points or 0.88 Ultimate Rewards points hotels on the san antonio riverwalk per $1 spent-  after accounting hotels on the san antonio riverwalk for all fees by using Emily s Chase Ink Bold to buy a $500 Visa gift card from Office Depot (which earned 5X Ultimate Rewards Points) and then using ChargeSmart to pay $484 towards my student loan.
Alternatively, I could have used the American Express Blue Cash Preferred credit card to buy a $500 Visa gift card from a grocery store for a net return of 1.9% cash back, if I preferred cash back to miles/points.
Most cards earn around 1 point/mile per $1 spent (usually worth less than 2 cents per point) or at most 2% or sometimes 3% cash back .  This means that you LOSE money when you use ChargeSmart hotels on the san antonio riverwalk to pay your loans.
However, you can earn 5 Ultimate Rewards points per $1 spent , which can be transferred to airlines or hotels, using the Chase Ink Bold or Chase Ink Plus at office supply stores (Office hotels on the san antonio riverwalk Max, Office Depot, Staples etc.)
Step 1:    Buy non-reloadable Visa or MasterCard gift cards in $500 denominations from an office supply store (Office Max, Office Depot, Staples) using the Chase Ink Bold or the Chase Ink Plus if you want to earn Chase Ultimate Rewards points.
You will pay a $4.95 activation fee for the Visa and $5.95 for the MasterCard (so try to buy Visa gift cards), but you will earn miles/points or get cash back once you factor in the 5 Ultimate Rewards points earned by buying the gift card at an office supply store or the 6% cash back by buying hotels on the san antonio riverwalk the gift card at a grocery store.
However, the fee for each loan provider is different and YOU need to research the rate charged, and do the math to see if it makes sense to make a payment of less than $500 using a gift card!  I ll cover individual lenders in more detail in future posts.
And using a $1,000 gift card, in one payment, is even better because you save on the activation fee and usually pay a lower ChargeSmart fee (not always, though, since some loan providers charge a flat fee.
This method takes advantage of the 5X Ultimate Rewards points earned when you buy a gift card using the Chase Ink Bold or Chase Ink Plus at an office supply store (Office Depot, Office Max, Staples).
Remember that you can redeem 1 Chase Ultimate Rewards point for a 1 cent statement credit, so let s assume that I redeem 2,098 of my 2,525 Ultimate Rewards points for a 1 cent statement credit to make up my cost of $20.98.
Some folks may even decide that paying $20.98 hotels on the san antonio riverwalk to earn 2,525 Ultimate Rewards points is a great deal since you re effectively paying only 0.83 cents per Ultimate Rewards point (2,098 cents / 2,525 Ultimate Rewards point).
My cost of $20.98 $16.03 in ChargeSmart fees and $4.95 is still the same.  I buy a $500 gift card card from a grocery store to take advantage of the 6% cash back in grocery hotels on the san antonio riverwalk stores hotels on the san antonio riverwalk with the American Express Blue Cash Preferred.
- You won t be able to pay the exact amount of your loan payment because this method is usually profitable only when using a $500 (or higher hotels on the san antonio riverwalk denomination) gift card in full to minimize the fees charged by ChargeSmart.
For example, if your monthly mortgage is $750, you can overpay your mortgage by $250 if you use two $500 gift cards.  But be sure that you can pay off your credit card bill in FULL.  Interest on credit cards is much, much higher than on most other loans.
- Using gift cards is most useful for making auto and student loans where the fee rates aren t that high.  Some mortgage hotels on the san antonio riverwalk lenders, such as Citi and Wells Fargo charge a high fee (5% for paying $500) which may it unprofitable to use gift cards and Chargesmart.
- You earn 5X Ultimate Rewards points on only the first $50,000 hotels on the san antonio riverwalk in spending in Office Supply stores on the Chase Ink Bold or Chase Ink Plus.  This works out to $4,167 in monthly spending in Office Supply stores.
Using the Chase Ink Bold or Chase Ink Plus cards to buy $500 gift cards from office supply stores or the American Express Blue Cash Preferred to buy $500 gift cards from grocery stores is a great way to earn miles/points or cash back for making those loan payments which don t usually earn miles or points!
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Here s the problem I ve been having with Chargesmart. I need to meet the spend on a Citi Hilton Visa, and would like to use it to pay my mortgage through US Bank. Chargesmart will only accept MasterCard to make payments to US Bank. I ve been beating myself over the head trying to come up with a method to this that minimizes fees, I went so far as to get a Paypal debit Mastercard only to find out I can t fund it from a credit hotels on the san antonio riverwalk card. Are there any other ways to get the money on my Visa turned into a Mastercard, short of the gift card route?
What I do for my Electric Bill, Gas Bill, and Student Loans all which total about $400.50 per month is buy a Vanilla hotels on the san antonio riverwalk top-up card with my Ink card at Office Depot and add the funds to my prepaid American Express card which allows for upto $400.00 a day to be withdrawn from an ATM machine (the first withdraw hotels on the san antonio riverwalk is fee free from AMEX) to combat the ATM fee, my local Costco store has a Credit Union ATM that doesn t charge a fee so for the cost of the Vanilla top-up card ($4.95) plus the $500.00 I put on it, I pay $400.00 worth of bills for 5 UR points per dollar. This way, I avoid the fees from 3rd party payment services.
i need to get a minimum spend so I use the actual credit card in charge smart for my mortage directly just like that I have the minimum spend done I get the points with the fee it nets to about 1% but on a $2,500 hotels on the san antonio riverwalk payment which gets me say 50,000 points hotels on the san antonio riverwalk in one shot plus 2,500 points I am willing to spend $50.
Thanks for posting this! I just checked out my lender, but the fee is about 5.25% based on the $500 net payment Oh, well! I will take at a look at utilities, etc. later. Maybe making a prepayment for those, if the fees make sense.
Checking the Charge Smart site, for my particular mortgage lender (PHH Mortgage) I have good news and bad news. The good nes is that there appears to be an option to reduce $ 10 off the monthly fee of $ 16.40 per $500 payment by opting in to automatic monthly payments. The bad news is that the only charge card options are Master Card or Discover. No Visa.
Eligible purchases do NOT include fees or interest charges, balance transfers, cash advances, purchases of American Express Travelers Cheques, purchases or reloading of American Express pre-paid cards, or purchases of other cash equivalents . Dosn t this restriction void the 6% cashback on Visa pre-paid gift card purchases at supermarkets?
Also I have seen it mentioned that Staples now charges shipping for online gift cards and only has lower denominations, but do bonus UR points post if using the online portal? hotels on the san antonio riverwalk If they do, it could still be worth the fees.
@Mike F - The same thing happened to me when I tried to pay my loan the first time. I quit and tried later with a different browser and got the Visa option. I d suggest calling and asking them to process the payment using a Visa over the phone.
hotels on the san antonio riverwalk @ih That s a great way to complete minimum spending, but this post was on how to earn miles and points for recurring loan payments without paying a large fee. You can use the AMEX to buy Visa gift cards and then use the gift cards at ChargeSmart, hotels on the san antonio riverwalk but you ll pay $4.95 activation fee per $500 gift card.
@James Yes, there is a prepaid MasterCard gift card. However, you can t use the prepaid MasterCard to get the $10 off the monthly payment. Also, I don t believe you get the $10 off every time just for the first time. I haven t heard of a reloadable MasterCard gift card.
Has anybody tried paying directly for school with gift cards? I was thinking of paying my tuition bill for this semester with amex gift cards to help meet minimum spend. Using promo codes to wipe out the fee and shipping, and receiving cashback from a portal like Ebates (in addition to miles on the card), it could be a great plan .
@ih - If you buy a Visa gift card using the SPG card at a grocery hotels on the san antonio riverwalk shop or gas station or office supply store etc. it will count towards the minimum spending on the SPG card. You can then use those Visa gift cards on ChargeSmart. Yes, you ll get 500 SPG points for a $500 purchase, but you will have to eat the ChargeSmart fee and the activation fee which is worth it only to meet the minimum spending.
4x fuel reward points on gift card purchases. I assume these apply to Visa/Mastercard purchases??? The way I understand the fuel points at Safeway is that you get a 10 cent/gallon discount for every $100 spent at Safeway. Purchasing a $500 gift card at 4x fuel points should earn you $2/gallon off your next gas purchase hotels on the san antonio riverwalk at safeway! (it did not say when the 4x promo would end)
Caution that this high earning rate will be limited by 2 things: Your need for $10 worth of groceries (which shouldn t be a problem can always stock up on non-perishables), and your need for gas as gas rewards expire at the end of the month after they are earned i.e. for purchases made today, gas rewards expire 10/31. So, this is not a completely churn-able process unless you fill up with gas frequently.
@ANC RED-EYE The $10 off coupon is pretty sweet. W