Plastiq announced a lucrative promotion where you could pay up to a $500 bill through their system with no fee – you just need to use a MasterCard through the Masterpass payment option. Plastiq is an awesome way to earn points and miles by using 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. If you take advantage of this promotion you’ll save on the 2.5% fee. 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).
In my mind this was a promotion that was too goo to last. And as expected, the promotion terms have changed! Starting June 1st, instead of being able to pay a bill up to $500 fee free, the cap will change to $250. Fortunately though, they will still honor the $500 cap until May 31st as well as any scheduled payments made prior to May 31st (even if they are for a date post May 31st). So make sure to make/schedule those payments within the next few days! You’ll then have until September 30, 2018 to make fee free payments up to $250 – although I would not be surprised if the promotion terms change again prior to this date. Here are the details of this promotion.
Some things to note:
- You can make as many payments as you want and take advantage of the fee free payments
- You must have already made $500 in payments to be eligible for this offer. So if you are new to Plastiq you’ll need to make a $500 payment first (and pay the fee) and you can then take advantage of this promotion.
- You cannot pay friends and family via Plastiq, you actually must be paying some sort of bill. Plastiq will many times ask for proof of a bill.
Using Masterpass with Plastiq
After you enter your payee information and the amount you want to pay (no more then $500), you are able to select an existing credit card or add a new credit card. Add a new credit card and click on the “More Ways to Add†button.  
You can then select the Masterpass option.
Sign into your Masterpass account (or create a new account) and add your MasterCard information. Select your MasterCard as your form of payment and you’ll see that your fee has dropped to $0.
Since this is limited to just MasterCard’s, pick the MasterCard that provides you with the most value – whether it be points or cash back. I only have two MasterCards – JetBlue and IHG. JetBlue points are worth way more then IHG points so I personally used my JetBlue credit card.
If you do not have a Mastercard or prefer to earn Chase Ultimate Reward points instead, remember, you can still earn 3x points by using your Chase Ink Preferred credit card. While you will still pay the 2.5% fee (since it is a Visa and not a Mastercard), the 3x points earned outweighs the fee you pay. You can learn more about this here.
My Experience with Plastiq Overall
I’ve been using Plastiq for over a year now to pay anything from preschool tuition, my mortgage, my accountant, etc. There were times last year when I used my Southwest credit card so I could earn points for the Southwest Companion Pass, but primarily I’ve been using my Chase Ink Preferred due to the 3x points. Now, I will exclusively use my JetBlue card until the promotion is over (or pulled).
I have personally never had any issues with bills not being sent/received, but I always suggest keeping a close eye on it to ensure payment is received. I find Plastiq to be extremely easy to use, especially for merchant that is already saved to your account. Typically bills take about a week to be received by the merchant.
New to Plastiq?
Now, if you are new to Plastiq there is a referral program where you can earn FFDs (Fee Free Dollars) towards your payments. After your first payment(s) totaling $500 or more, you’ll earn $500 in FFDs. That means on your next $500 in payments you will not pay a fee at all! This is regardless of the credit card you use to pay. You must sign up for Plastiq through a referral and then you can go ahead and use your referral link to get friends/family members to sign up.
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Howdy. How would you go about paying taxes? Isn’t some sort of form required when you make your payment? I’ve used Pay1040.com but don’t get how this would work.