Originally Posted by
Ancien Maestro
In order to take advantage of paying mortgage on credit card, you end up paying a large fee equal to what the vendor pays. jmho, not worth it.. save the money.. its' one of those things in life that you've got to pay without using your cc.
Having said that, I wish I could make mortgage payments and rent payments on cc accross the board.. That would be awesome!
In practice, people pursuing the various deals discussed on FlyerTalk frequently are topping up to an award or spending bonus
or stacking their spending with a rebated gift card, any of which can make these services economical.
For example, right now many FlyerTalkers are trying to complete their 100k British Airways Visa $2.5k spend requirement. At just under 2%, paying $199.99 for PG&E is the most economical method among these services. Although, this would normally only account for ~$200/month of that spend.
That said, I find Spiffster's idea of taking coins to a payment processing center interesting. Pacific Gas and Electric seems to have similar arrangements for some check cashing stores, liquor stores and some Walmarts, documented at
http://www.pge.com/paystation/ . Thanks, Spiffster!
Update 5/17/2011: Oops. What was I thinking? There are no substantial non-AmEx gift card rebates available anymore that I am aware of, and ChargeSmart doesn't accept AmEx.
Update 5/17/2011: Oops again. It looks like there is a much cheaper way to pay PG&E by credit card. See my next post.