I’ve previously written why I like mailed, paper statements for my credit cards. First, I like that they could target you for bonus points. They provide return envelopes that you could use for gift card churning. In addition, if you churn using money orders you could easily mail in the money order to pay for the credit card statement.
If you are targeted for a paperless bonus, there is nothing stopping you from going back to paper statements after you receive the bonus.
The Store:
There is one place that will allow you to do a bill pay, but they require paper statements. The cost is about 200% greater than Walmart, but it works in NYC and does not require a visit to Walmart.
I will purposely obfuscate the details. I will leave the comments open and allow you openly discuss, but I will neither confirm nor deny the place of business, the cards used, or other details.
This business has many financial services, that I have listed to help you find the place:
- Western Union
- E-Z Pass
- MetroCards
- Bill Pay
- Armored Truck services
The Math:
The business charges $2.95 for bill pay and a $1 fee for using a debit card and requires the statement. When processed, the bill pay also counts as a debit card purchase. Let’s review fees again, from Matt’s post on fixed and variable fees. Because the bill pay fee is fixed, the higher the bill, the cheaper it becomes to manufacture spend.
Below is a chart that we use to load a prepaid card that does not offer bill pay. Using a straight 1% card, your points earned could be higher, thus reducing the cost basis.
| Cumulative Load Fee | Cumulative Cash Balance | Points Earned | Bill Pay fees | $/pt generated |
| 2.5 | 517.5 | 518 | 3.95 | 0.012451737 |
| 5 | 1035 | 1035 | 3.95 | 0.008647343 |
| 7.5 | 1552.5 | 1553 | 3.95 | 0.007372827 |
| 10 | 2070 | 2070 | 3.95 | 0.00673913 |
I did a small test, at $300 for a few reasons.
- The cash back I am limited to per week is $200, if it counted as a cash withdrawal I know this would not work.
- If it was processed, I knew it would count as a purchase.
- If this was a complete flop and not to embarrass myself or annoy her with the transaction if it failed, I could pay in cash
If you are in the NYC our pal, PF Digest, found this great card before it was blasted all over FlyerTalk that would lower the cost basis! He is the best at finding cards that no one knows about like the Old AMEX, the online Citibank offer, increased Wyndham bonus, and many more! If it wasn’t for him, I would never have thought to look at the cards issued by Comenity and figured out that you could use Evolve to pay those cards.
If you don’t follow his posts, you are missing out on great MS’ing bonus opportunities.
Have you ever looked into Balance Financial? Works in NYC and is much cheaper than this.
Is there a limit to how many gift cards you can use in 1 bill pay transaction?
Regarding which company offers this service, without googling it I would guess the MTA.
I have not seen Balance Financial before. I’ll have to research this. Thanks!
I’ve only used one card for payment so I’m not sure if a split payment can be made
I’m gonna guess Duane Reade, cause, man, those things are everywhere in NYC.
I found the real answer, and I’m disappointed that they’re not in my (upstate) town. Oh well.
post it dude!
Step one: copy all of the bullet points above.
Step two: enter them into search engine.
http://www.payomatic.com/index.html
This is what I found in google.
clever!
I’m a big believer in public transit.
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The real test will be whether multiple debit cards are accepted to make a payment.
Have they stopped taking one vanilla debit cards? I went and they said you needed to have a card with your name on it.
That was one vanilla debit cards for MO..sorry
Definitely a YMMV – I’ve never been asked about what type of card for MO or bill pay unless the transaction is over $500
@Chasingthepoints, exactly, I found others that took OV w/o any issue….thanks for the great tip. They have now added CC BP to their services.
You’re welcome! I am glad you are able to take advantage of it
I went into a place and they wouldn’t take OV for money orders. Didn’t ask about BP since I didn’t have bill with me. But I’m thinking that I may have the wrong place (of course it could just be my particular location). So one question, does the place have many locations in queens or extremely few?
There’s 34 locations in Queens, not sure if that constitutes extremely few as Queens is fairly large
Too bad, that’s where I went…maybe i will go back and hope for a different clerk, or is it better to find another location altogether?