Has anyone had any luck with getting a Chase bonus for CO for paying taxes? Seems like Chase is offering UA to 'non-targeted' customers when asked; but has anyone tried for CO bonus miles with or without success? Thanks.

Received Double MR offer on 04/07
 

Not sure if this has been discussed(I went back a few pages but couldn't find anything) but I recently received offer of double MR points on my Biz Amex Gold Card .
Procrastinating can be a good thing ;)

With or without a cap?

Bonus points are capped at 100,000 total

The fine print indicates that a convenience fee of 2.49% applies.

I very much doubt ehlfg was unaware of the 2.49% "convenience fee," which has been discussed at exhaustive length here. ehlfg was questioning whether there were any "bonus" miles/points were to be had, reducing the effective cost to perhaps only 1.245 cpm/cpp, or whether there were only "regular" miles/points, leaving the cost at 2.49 cpm/cpp.

What gives, are you any more charming than I am? I called Amex this afternoon to see if I could get bonus points for using my biz Gold card to pay taxes, and much as I wheedled, I was told "no" several times by several different Amex reps, though always very politely. (I don't know whether Amex starts with better recruits or just prepares its people better, but I do think they have a higher caliber of phone reps than just about any other company I have occasion to deal with.) They seemed not to care that they had told my fellow FTer sfducati he could pay his taxes with the card and get up to 100K MR. (sfducati, you're not putting us on about the 100K cap, are you?)

Anyway, I didn't leave completely empty-handed. The rep who addressed my question as an SPG Amex one did drop 3K into my SPG account to assuage my hurt feelings, and the biz Gold people came up with 2.5K MR to keep me, though I have never used the card and will cancel it at some point if I don't start feeling some love from them soon.

My wife and I both have Amex Business Gold and we received letters offering double points for paying our taxes online (2.49% charge). The way I view this, I'm getting 80+ points per dollar spent (0.01245 cpp). I'm gonna pay the tax bill anyway but this way for a nominal fee I get some points out of it.

Can you normally pick up 10,000 MR points for $120?

Congratulations. Would like to know how you and your wife were both "targeted" for the offer, but that of course is Amex's secret, one they don't share. Someone quoted Amex bragging about how sophisticated their systems are, letting them knew their customers very well from the data they have on us and get the greatest return on the offers they make.

The credit cards may be willing to give something away upfront to snag us and our business, e.g., enrollment miles, but do they ever have "loss leaders" later to encourage more business? Hard for me to believe that Amex (or Chase with their "target" double miles for tax payment offers) loses money on these deals, but their margins must be pretty thin given that Official Payments has to get its share of the vigorish. (Unlike those who are selling us goods or services with a mark up or profit built into the price, Official Payments can't be getting any discount for the feds and other tax authorities they are collecting for, so profits must come from that 2.49% convenience fee.) The float must be a huge factor in the costs, since we can pay off our taxes now and not pay the credit card company (Amex or Chase) for up to 6 weeks from the time of the charge. And in the end it is 1.245 cpp or cpm to us, and 1.245 cents to be divided between the credit card company and Official Payments.

I don't expect anyone knows this story in detail from the credit card issuer's perspective, but can anyone imagine how it avails them to offer double miles or points for tax payments, but offer it only to those they "target"? Why would it be in their interests to offer it to some (whom?), but not to everyone? Thoughts?

:D
I cannot really tell you why I was targeted-I signed up for the card in Oct 2007, so perhaps they're targeting me because I'm a "newbie" and they want to make sure I renew it later this year :p

Do you need the bonus ID? I can post it later today..
Good for you! Atleast you did end up getting something :)

So maybe we are equally charming, but you are the "newbie" and I'm not, though I don't think I have had this card, that I have never used, for very long.

I've already paid what I have to pay at this time to the feds and the state, sums a small fraction with what I had to come up with last year to cover the gain on sale of a big asset. But maybe someone else can make use of the bonus code, so go ahead and post it if you will. Maybe with that bonus code, I will call Amex again and ask them to explain the offer, seeing if I can learn anything about how they work it. Did you need to use the bonus code, or did you just go to the Official Payments website and make your payment(s) with the Amex card, no need or place to enter the bonus code?

I suppose the Amex MR can be valued as equivalent in value to airline miles, since they are convertible 1:1 to miles with some carriers, maybe a tad more since is the opportunity to go with different ones and different alliances. Does anyone think Amex MR is worth more than airline miles, and if so, redeeming for what?

Best to use Starwood Amex as every 20K of spend converts to 25K of airline miles in most affiliated programs. So,that 2.49% service fee would net down to 2% if you could align your tax payments in $20K increments.

Yes, but alas, there is no double points for paying your taxes with the SPG card (that I know of), and when there was one (last year), it was capped at 5K. Now SPG is worth considerably more than MR not only because you can get that 25% bonus when converting SPG to miles with some carriers, but because it translates into greater value when used for Sheraton stays. So, some may find it worthwhile to pay taxes with the SPG AmEx even
[I]without/I] the double points offer to sweeten it x2.

As promised:
Bonus ID 0822
You can directly pay on the officialpayments.com/open OR pay1040.com/open (no need to enter bonus code ) or call their respective phone numbers.

Let us know what you find out from Amex about the promo!

Does anyone know if tax payments via officialpayments.com, using a Chase debit card ($2.95 fee), is considered a "purchase" by Chase, hence earning UA miles at 1/$1? I'm presuming not, yet have to ask before thinking about filtering a very large tax payment through an AA credit card (2.49% fee).

Thanks!

Steve B.