So it seems the blogosphere went ballistic yesterday when MMS, FM, and TPG all wrote about Plastiq yesterday. I’m too drunk and lazy to link to them right now. This was actually written about in a DoC newsletter a couple of months ago. In private chat rooms and forums, this has been discussed about. The reason for that is because they take AGC. The fee at the time was 2.5%. If you factor in 2.25% AGC – 0.2% AGC fee = 2% , you’re paying about 0.5% (2.5% – 2.0%) for say an SPG point, which is pretty cheap if you value SPG at 2%.
A buddy of mine tried to pay a local credit union that was listed in their database, but I think he went too hard too fast. I think he tried to send almost $5K to them. They then asked him to send proof of the bill, which he did, but they still refunded his money.
So about a week ago, I tried to pay my local CU car loan using Plastiq. I entered in the car loan information (the mailing address of where I would send a check). I even entered in the ACH information, but I kept getting an error. I then went back and selected the ‘pay by check’ feature. I then checked out with an AGC, and SUCCESS. I waited about a week and the payment finally posted to my car loan the other day. It took about a week. Sorry, I don’t have screenshots since I didn’t think I’d be blogging about it. I was hoping it would stay somewhat ‘underground,’ but since the big blogs blogged about it, I would give you my review/experience with Plastiq. I expect it to be shut down or heavily scrutinized more now. But you may as well TREAT YO SELF while you still can.
Some helpful tips – I wouldn’t send more than $1K as your first payment. Keep it somewhat reasonable. I’m sure someone will ask, “Can I just pay my local credit union?” Well, I have that answer for you:
Now the question will be – is this a good use of AGC. SURE! If you assume AGC is almost limitless, as in you can buy more AGC than you can liquidate, then there’s not really an opportunity cost at play here. If I could only buy $10K of AGC each month, then I should save that all for RB loads since the expense is 1%. If I can buy virtually limitless AGC (which I’m sure most of you are in this camp), then sure, it’s worth it to liquidate it at 1.99% (and even at 2.5% if you think about it).
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can you help me understand the math here… AGC CB portals go above 2% on only a few good days. what’s the 0.2% AGC fee – is that the $3.95 per card fee associated with each purchase?
so all this trouble just to end up where you started aka break even – with just the CC rewards. I suppose the merry-go-round is better than buying points for around 1% but if AGCs dont track or plastiq decides to keep your money, that could suck in a hurry.
Yes, you basically break even and the only gain is on the cc spend (which should be SPG or even a 2% cb card). This isn’t a margin play. This is a volume play. I’m not concerned about AGC not tracking or Plastiq keeping my money.
I want to add to this that I already had an account at Plastiq before FrequentMiler posted the 1.99% special for Amex. I followed his instructions and emailed them asking for the special rate. I just received an email back from them confirming they gave it to me. Too bad I already sent August’s mortgage payments in, but hopefully this 1.99% will stick around for a long time.
Someone mentioned the promo rate will drop on 8/10, but I haven’t confirmed.
I pay multiple mortgage payments monthly with Plastiq. It works fine, but does take a while for the check to be mailed. I send the payments at least 1-2 weeks in advance. I wish they did ACH like Redbird does.
I tried to pay my wife for professional services, but they nixed that immediately. 🙂 I think I will add the car payment in next month, that’s a great tip!
With this latest 1.99% special, this is now a (slight) money maker. I hope it sticks around. Since they’re obviously advertising thru FM and others, it appears like they welcome MSers. We shall see.
Nice play. I need to pay my mortgage too. In what increments are you sending checks to mortgage? $1K or $2K?
I send the exact amount of the payment for each of them. I try to put as many payments as I can on each AGC. Then I use up the remaining balances of the AGCs at CVS on VGCs for RB.