8 ms·
Good? I hate the asinine secondary market of "points". Just don't take the money in the first place and then we don't have to sort out how I can reclaim it so
by cagenut 8y ago
Good? I hate the asinine secondary market of "points". Just don't take the money in the first place and then we don't have to sort out how I can reclaim it somehow.
- cycrutchfield 8y agoI love points. I get to fly first or business class internationally all the time, and it's all pretty much paid for by rubes that subsidize my travels.
- linuxftw 8y agoI love the points as well, though I typically fly economy. Combine the credit cards with airline shopping portals which give you bonus points for things you were going to buy anyway, and the points go so much farther.
- Marsymars 8y agoI've found it very difficult to try to explain this well to people who aren't financially/numerically-inclined. The latest fad in Canada seems to be Paytm, which lets you pay (among various bills), your property taxes with your credit card.
- koolba 8y agoThat’s available in many places in USA as well though everywhere I’ve seen charges a transaction fee which nets it negative for the consumer.
- anoncoward111 8y agoThe only way to salvage this as a positive is to pay it with a new credit card and reap a very large signing bonus
- mehrdadn 8y agoWhat's the fee? Is it higher than the 2% cash back Citi gives you?
- anamexis 8y agoThey're typically 2.5 - 3.5%.
- cycrutchfield 8y agoYou can pay your federal income taxes via credit card for 1.87%
- mehrdadn 8y agoWait, seriously? I only ever saw a bank account option. I'd totally do this.
- cycrutchfield 8y agoThere are a bunch of different sites, but I have used this one: https://www.pay1040.com/ https://www.pay1040.com/
- mehrdadn 8y agoOh wow, so I have to give them my name, address, phone, and SSN just to process a credit card payment? That's not worth it...
- cycrutchfield 8y agoYour SSN is essentially your Tax ID number, so I'm not sure how else you would expect them to pay your taxes on your behalf.
- mehrdadn 8y ago
- cdjk 8y agoNot if you can get 3% cashback on a transaction while paying a 2.5% fee.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- smsm42 8y agoIf you have regular rewards card, like 1%-1.5%, sure. But if you have 3% or 5% (I don't know of any card that does it on taxes specifically, but there might be ones where it fits some of the categories) or if you need to fulfill requirement like "spend $X000 in N months and get tons of points" then even with the transaction fee it might actually be a pretty good deal.
- koolba 8y agoI’ve never seen a 5% rewards card for generic purchases. Does that exist?
- toomuchtodo 8y agoOnly for rotating spend categories. Sometimes you have to jump through hoops to activate those categories.
- astura 8y agoThe BBVA NBA AMEX used to earn 5% cash back twice a year. I would pay six months worth of phone, internet, insurance, etc upfront during that time. The 5% was eventually capped and the card no longer exists.
- 001spartan 8y agoThe Amazon Prime Visa gives 5% back on Amazon purchases.
- smsm42 8y agoNot 5% for everything, but "5% in our store" are common (Amazon, Best Buy, Lowes, etc.) and of course tons of cards do categories, so I can't exclude the case where however the service is classified (I have no idea... is there a category for government payments?) it fits one of the categories. In fact, some card might even run it as a promotion - with suitable limits, it's no more expensive than any other 5% deal...
- Bramble 8y agoSo you hate getting something back for choosing one payment method over another when there's no indication that retail stores would lower their prices if credit cards (and their transaction fees) were wiped out?
- nothrabannosir 8y ago> there's no indication that retail stores would lower their prices Competition will lead to that. It doesn't happen immediately, it happens in waves. These are called price wars. When that happens, they try to undercut competition at every possible turn, and having lower payment processing fees allows them to go lower. Who wins a price war? The consumer. Yes: points are ridiculous. The fact that credit card fees are passed on to cash payers is ridiculous. Visa and Mastercard are absolutely minted. Where does that money come from? You and I. (and: why does competition not work for Visa and Mastercard as well as it does for retailers? Because the feedback loop is much longer. Intractable, in practice. Choosing one retailer or the other is a clear signal we can send. But are we going to choose merchants based on payment processor support? As for merchants, they're stuck in an oligopoly. Competition is gone, leading to this unhealthy market.)
- ardit33 8y agoAt least those "$5.00 or $20.00 minimum for credit cards" signs that you see often in coffee places and bars will go away. They are probably illegal (or against contracts) in most states, but you see them very often.
- Marsymars 8y ago> They are probably illegal (or against contracts) in most states, but you see them very often. Minimum purchase requirements for credit cards were explicitly legalized in the US in 2010 as part of Dodd-Frank. Merchant agreements are not legally allowed to prohibit them.
- myrandomcomment 8y agoThanks for share this. It is news to me as that used to be prohibited by the CC. "2010 law: up to $10 minimum OK. The law says that merchants can set a credit card minimum purchase of up to $10, as long as they treat all cards the same. It also allows the Federal Reserve to review and increase the minimum payment amount."
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ThrustVectoring 8y agoThe economics of it isn't just handing you your own money with a couple arbitrary hoops in the way. There's a portion of cross-subsidy from cash, debit, and low-rewards credit card payers, along with capturing some of the merchant's efficiency gains of using cards over cash (harder for employees to steal, no need for armored cars for cash pickups, etc).
- oasisbob 8y agoUnless a retailer doesn't accept any cash, the marginal cost of accepting another cash transaction is low.
- pathseeker 8y agoI think you would be surprised at how little cash many places need to operate with in the presence of credit cards. Consider a front desk at a hotel. Thousands of dollars a day in transactions occur via card, which would warrant frequent drops into an expensive safe if they happened with cash. With cards they pretty much only hold a trivial amount to deal with sundries that isn't worth protecting beyond a simple envelope to a back-office. Credit cards dominate many industries in the US to a point where cash management is now trivial because the daily amounts aren't worth any employee losing their job over or a criminal risking robbery punishment for.
- oasisbob 8y agoThat hotel is still doing cash accounting though. If there isn't much at the front desk, how about the bar? The restaurant? A business that has any type of daily cash accounting is still going to need to balance the register at the end of the day, reestablish change to open with, have arrangements for transport, &c. Bad employees can still pocket a tenner on occasion. Sure, some smaller places with barely any cash probably just lock the drawer and call it a night. I can't find the figures now, but estimates of cost of cash handling is far far lower than the 2-3% of swipe fees.
- 8y ago
- rosege 8y agoOr just work the system - I made around $6000AUD from points in the last 12 months. Its pretty minimal work. Sign up for card. Fulfil requirements to get sign-on points then cancel and move onto the next card. Your credit rating takes a bit of a hit but recovers over time.
- cycrutchfield 8y agoYou credit rating can actually in some cases get better, believe it or not.
- rosege 8y agoYeah mine dropped but over time (around a year) has come back higher than it was so I could definitely believe that.
- cycrutchfield 8y agoIf you don't cancel and instead just downgrade to a no-annual fee card it should help your score. I am not sure how it works in Australia, but average age of accounts plays a large role in US credit rating calculations.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]