UPDATE: This “promo†is now expired, or really was a glitch now updated.
The bill payment site Plastiq is at it again with another Mastercard partnership promotion. With this promotion, any bills paid with a Mastercard will be charged at only a 1.5% fee — a 1% discount on the normal amount you’d typically pay (and still currently pay with American Express and Visa). For those new to Plastiq, it is ultimately a way to use a credit card to pay bills where you typically couldn’t use a credit card to pay direct. These bills include rent, car loans, utilities, school tuition, taxes etc. And the best is you can actually pay your mortgage with this promotion since MasterCard allows you to pay your mortgage through Plastiq (Amex and Visa do not). Ultimately, this is a great way to earn points and miles on certain credit cards (where the points/cash back you earn is more than the fee you pay) or to meet a minimum spend bonus.
As of today, this is an unadvertised promotion so the expiration date has yet to be announced. With that being said, Plastiq has changed promotions in the past a few days after they’ve been announced (due to high demand), so if this is a promotion so works for you, I suggest taking advantage of it asap.
Credit Cards to Use
With this promotion, as long as you have a card that earns you more than a 1.5% return, you are ultimately earning free points or cash. Some popular MasterCard’s include: JetBlue, IHG, Citi AAdvantage, Citi Thank You Premier, Barclaycard Arrival Plus.
For example, the Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite Mastercard will earn you 2x miles on all purchases. This means you are ultimately earning 2% back on future travel purchases. Since you are spending 1.5% on your purchase with this card, you will be ahead 0.5% per dollar spent with Plastiq. For example, let’s say you have a $1,500 mortgage a month; if you make these purchases through Plastiq with your Arrival Plus credit card, you will earn $7.50 in ultimately “free” miles to use towards travel. O’ll happily take some free money where I’d typically earn nothing. Or, if you recently signed up for this card (due to the 70k sign up bonus), you can use this as an opportunity to meet the minimum spend requirement and earn the extra half a percent on your purchase! You can learn more about the Arrival Plus credit card here.
Or, take into consideration the JetBlue Plus Credit Card. Typically JetBlue points are worth about 1.3 cents per point, so while you might lose a few dollars in value when you use Plastiq with this card, there are some great spend benefits with this card. If you are able to spend $50,000 on your card in the calendar year, you’ll earn automatic Mosaic status. This could be an incredibly cheap way to ultimately buy yourself Mosaic status!
New to Plastiq?
If you are new to Plastiq, you can also earn an extra 500 FFDs after making your first payment of $500. You just need to sign up Plastiq through a referral link.Or, if you are a business owner, you can earn 10,000 FFD’s after you spend your first $10,000. To take advantage of this promotion, you must sign up up here through a special link. Both of these are my referral links, thank you in advance!
Overall…
This is a great promotion to meet minimum spend, hit spend threshold benefits and earn free points and miles. Ultimately, it is definitely a promotion I highly suggest everyone looking into, especially if you already have one of these cards. I personally have been using Plastiq for well over a year to pay my mortgage, preschool bills, taxes, my accountant, and other random odds and ends. It has definitely earned me a good amount of points and miles along the way as well as helping me earn the Southwest Companion Pass!
Here are related posts to maximizing your Plastiq purchases:
- A Handy Guide to Plastiq Payments—Credit Cards You Can and Cannot Use
- Plastiq Offering 10,000 “Fee-Free Dollars†for New Accounts—Increase Your Credit Card Spend to Earn More Points and Miles
- You Can Still Get FREE Points and Miles with Plastiq!
- I’m Making Money with Plastiq!
HT: Doctor of Credit
The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
$75 dollars? If the fee is 1.5% on a $1,500 payment one would net .5 %
How is this $75?
@Dave – I missed a decimal point there. Updated the post. Thanks!
How are there any free points involved here? Discounted points and/or travel yes, but how can you be “earning free points” when you are essentially buying thank you points or AA miles for 1.5 cents each?
I just signed up for Plastiq using your referral link. Added my MasterCard info, setup a new payment, but at the final “checkout” screen it is showing me the 2.5% fee, not the 1.5%. When asked about business or personal account at signup time, I selected both and proceeded to enter business name, etc. Any ideas if I am doing something wrong? Or did the promo already go away?
No luck. I tried the IHG Rewards card (a Mastercard). I started the payment process, but Plastiq didn’t show me 1.5% as the final cost, so I quit the transaction.