If you pay a 2.49% "convenience fee" and realize "double miles" for it, then you are paying 1.245 cents per mile purchased this way, right? (If you aren't getting "double miles," only the usual 1 mile/$1 charged, then you are paying 2.49 cpm.) If instead of 2 miles/$1 charged, you get 1.5 miles with the Juniper MC, ought it not come out to 4/3 x 1.245 cpm, or 1.66 cpm or thereabouts? An extra 1.5 months of interest may bring the net cost down a bit more (1.4 cpm?), but that interest income is presumably taxable, so not as sweet as might first appear.

I think that my offline, pen-and-paper analysis leading up to the 1.4 CPM number was fundamentally the same as what you wrote above, with the exception that I forgot to include the tax liability on the interest income (oops!), so maybe push that a bit higher. The numbers definitely look a lot nicer when you're talking about double miles though.

It's a tiny bit better than that, since you're also getting the standard 1 mile per dollar on the "convenience fee" portion of the payment.

Right. Since to satisfy a tax obligation of $100 one pays $102.49 and realizes 202.49 miles in the end, not 200.00 miles. I don't have a calculator at hand to say how much less than 1.245 cpm one spends to purchases miles this way, but it is "a tiny bit better." A greater sweetener for me than that small extra yield from the "convenience fee" portion, though, is the ability to get past $35K with the Platinum Visa with this "essential" expenditure and realize 5K of EQM as an added benefit beyond the basic (RDM) mileage one. That is how 1K-lite happens. ;)

0.98 cents per RDM
 

$2.49/202.49m = 1.23 cpm. If you're doing this with Starwood, and end up converting the points to airline miles with the 25% bonus for the 20k transfer, it works out to 0.98 cents per airline mile, which is pretty good. I personally value Starpoints at more than 1.25 air miles, so I'd keep them with SPG.

If you also figure that you can invest that money for an extra 45 days or so (billing cycle plus grace period), say you can get 4% net of taxes (not too hard nowadays), that's 0.5% over the 45 days, which would make the cost in the equation above $1.99 instead of $2.49 (so 0.98 cpp and 0.79 cpm).

I did the Starwood AmEx deal, as well as the UA Visa one. But I believe the former was capped at a total $5K payment, while there was no cap on the latter. Also, IIRC, the former was only good for 4/15/06 payments to the IRS(2005 fed taxes), whereas the latter is there for tax payments of various sort through 12/31/06. So the Starwood deal was a good one, but couldn't get that much of it and no EQM possibilities in it.

Others give Starpoints a somewhat higher relative value to them over air miles, which themselves vary in value depending on the particular carrier, and it should be noted that Starpoints don't convert at that same favorable rate to all carriers equally (UA).

45 days from charge to payment due date is about the very best that one can do, and all the stars must be alignment to get that much "free" time (i.e., date when tax payment due, date when statement cuts, and grace period for credit card payment). I'm not sure what highly liquid investments presently yield 4% after all taxes (>6 or 7% pre-tax?), but not impossible.

I have used Official Payments to pay taxes with my United Visa several times now and have been quite pleased. Something seems to have gone wrong with my quarterly IRS payment last week, however, and I can't get anyone on the phone at any of the numbers they list, only "automated" responses. I am some kind of p.o.'ed. There are substantial sums of money involved and I expect to talk to a live person, not a recording so my questions can be answered.

Anyone else have problems with Official Payments? (The double miles offer is on until at least the end of the year, and I intend to keep banging it, that is unless Official Payments does not perform satisfactorily, e.g., doesn't answer phones.)

In the phone tree, try the option for payment over $100,000, or whatever the large number is. I think that will get you a human.

Thanks. I had the same thought, but it didn't work. Not good, especially for a company which would handle large payments. I do seem to recall speaking to a rep months ago when I called, but can't get around, through, over, etc. the automated answers now, when I do need to speak to them ASAP.

Push 4.

$100K for a QUARTERLY payment? Woo! 2 international F trips!

Thanks, though I'm not sure what number you started with, and I know that I never heard a "to speak with a rep" option. (Hitting "0" just kept bringing me back to the start of the automated menu again and again.) I eventually connected by calling 1-800-487-4567, then #1, then #4. This is not one of the numbers listed on their website, though.

This deal has worked great for me and I very much hope they offer it again next year. But I was really frosted to encounter so much difficulty reaching a rep.

There are many promos for double points for tax payments in and around April. What about Sept and quarterly bonuses? Who is offering those?

I don't know about offers good for AA, but the UA one using a their Visa with Official Payments is still out there.

I don't know about offers good for AA, but the UA one using their Visa with Official Payments is still out there.