USAA now automatically bills to credit card
 

I went in to pay my May bill today, which I've had to do on a monthly basis in order to get the credit card miles, and was offered the option to sign up for recurring payments via my credit card. Sweet. And, slightly off topic, they seem to have dropped their $4.00/mo fee for using the extended payment plan instead of the regular payment plan.

Now, if PG&E and my propane company would offer no cost credit card payments.

BTW, for those of you who are reluctant to allow automatic billing, I've never had an issue with unauthorized charges, but then, YMMV. Heck, I even have good experiences with the IRS, FTB, and DMV, so maybe I'm lucky.

Thanks for the info... I called USAA up today and have changed my home/auto insurance to withdraw from my AA credit card. More miles! FlyerTalk is great!b

I have mixed feelings about this. If you have dispute and chargeback rights, then billing to credit cards isn't nearly as bad as automatic checking account debiting (which I don't believe anyone should allow under any circumstances).

But here's the argument against the practices that you don't hear often enough: They'll encourage companies to invent more "junk fees." For proof, think of the behavior of the only entity that has had the ability to go in and take from your account as they wish, namely the bank itself. All kinds of fees and charges there...even the "good" customers often get maintenance fees or monthly debit card fees or other things the bank takes out with relish. Many if not most of those fees did not exist 25 years ago.

If you give the power company or the phone company or those other outfits the same kind of access and they sense that consumer scrutiny of bills is getting lax, they'll start inventing fees to raise revenue. BellSouth just did a "regulatory compliance fee" of about $3 for DSL accounts, many of which are billed to credit cards. The fee is not legally mandated and amounts to a price increase, as they're making what was a cost-of-doing-business into a separate charge (not unlike airline fuel surcharges).

As with all price-increase behavior, whether it sticks usually depends on consumer scrutiny and resistance. The danger with the automatic debits is that all that is lowered in the name of convenience.

You can also bet that companies that bill to your credit card will want to move toward debiting your checking account. A good example of this is eBay/PayPal, which offers credit cards (and credit card billing) but then tries hard to get you not to use them. Another is the Postal Service, which is now trying to jawbone medium-size users (like auction sellers) into debits rather than using credit cards.

The companies billing your card are likely happy with it for now...less processing/mailing costs, quicker possession of money, etc. But it won't be long before they take those gains for granted and, trying to boost profits even more, adopt a carrot-and-stick (or maybe just stick) approach to pushing people into account debits and thus cutting out the money paid to the credit card companies. Expect it to start with companies you have to deal with, like utilities. Makes me glad there are still some people out there who won't change from paper checks.

RustyC - I agree with you that companies will spin the features they offer. However, USAA is a different company. They provide excellent service and offer features that most companies do not. In my experience with them, they have usually made it better for the members not worse. Imagine a company that pays for your ATM withdrawals fees and does not charge you for using ATMs.. Or a company that lets you pay your home/car insurance monthly with no finance charges... Or an insurance company that sends you a check every year because they made more money than expected... Well USAA has provided excellent service at a competitive cost and there would be no way that I would ever leave them!

To your point, I see other companies providing fees to their customers for previous free services. For example, once in a blue moon, a paper airplane ticket is nice to have to get on another carrier's flight if your's is delayed, etc.

I just wish USAA would accept cc's for paying life insurance and homeowners. I was able to use my cc to pay the initial annual premium for my life policy but after that it's been check only. I pay my auto and additional rider policies with cc's.

absolutely agree with Freelunch about USAA - it's almost hard to believe that a company like this still operates as it does; those checks returning excess profits (amount based on length of time as USAA member) are a nifty surprise; I, too, can not imagine leaving this class act of a company, and we've been members a looooong time.

Having been a member for 23 years I can say they are a class act. But you also have to give credit to the members.

I've been a member for ~23 years also. When I see the balance in my Subscriber's Savings Account and realize that if I quit USAA they'd cut me a check for that amount... :eek:

Anyone here longer?
 

I've been a member for 36 years, and yes, love the company, but did not know about the new credit card option. Great!

FWIW, USAA and/or Eagle Points dropped the annual limit this year for accumulating eagle points, so no limits whatsoever to accumulating Eagle Points.

Great news! I tried to find the new payment by credit card option on their online portal, but I was not successful... (It still has only checking as a monthly payment option for my auto bill).

So, I will call them and have it updated.

I went in this afternoon and found the credit card option to pay my current bill.

Homeowners and Auto are on the same bill, no problem paying both of those on CC. I don't have life insurance with USAA so I don't know whether that would differ.

- And in case someone hasn't noticed - there's no longer an additional $2 or $3 charge to pay over the full 6 or 12 months...

I complained loudly about this to a BellSo phone rep and she gave me credit for 6 months worth of that garbage increase. Only trouble is that I'll need to threaten them with moving to the cable company again in 6 months. I don't think that they realize how lame my cable company (Adelphia) is and that I wouldn't trust them until they show that they start showing that know how to run their business.

Agreed -- USAA is an awesome organization. They have the best insurance rates hands down, friendly and helpful CSRs, competitive APRs, and are always looking to improve. :-: :-: :-: :-: :-:

Just thought I'd give this a bump. I just got a mailer from USAA about using credit cards for insurance payments - so I went and did it. Next I thought I would see if I could add it to the corporate knowledge at flyertalk and found it was already there. Of course :p . In any case, perhaps the bump will help someone else out.

FWIW, I fully agree with all the comments about USAA being a high class company. I've had consistent excellent service from them for 25 years.