So You CAN Use a Visa to Pay Your Mortgage with Plastiq

UPDATE: Plastiq reached out to me to let me know that “mortgage payments are not an allowable category on Visa cards”.  I was also told that “any attempt to knowingly miscategorize mortgage payments would result in the termination of their Plastiq account.”

Over this summer there were many reports stating that you could no longer use a Visa credit card to pay your mortgage through the online bill payment system Plastiq. This was unfortunate since there are some cards where the points earned from your Plastiq charge actually outweigh the fee you have to pay. Not only that, it is easy to accrue some “fee free dollars” by just signing up as a new user or referring your friends and family.

My payment failed to process back in August

Then at the beginning of September I tried it again. Paying my mortgage with my Chase Southwest credit card (a Visa) went through – no problem at all. I actually was able to make multiple payments between then and now, so by no means a fluke.

My Plastiq Manage Payments screen showing completed transactions to my mortgage company. BTW, I was just pre-paying some of the mortgage for the year, I do not have a $9,000/month mortgage!

Yesterday I was talking to a few other travel bloggers, both Nick and Greg from The Frequent Miler. They mentioned their disappointment that you can no longer use a Visa card to pay your mortgage with Plastiq. I pulled up my Plastiq account and showed them I had no problem whatsoever! That while they shut it down this summer, it is back up and working. Now, it could always be that my mortgage company is a small bank and not a large well known bank, i.e., Chase, Wells Fargo, etc so it isn’t really recognized in the “Mortgage” category.

Anyone have any recent experience using Plastiq to pay their mortgage with a Visa credit card? Please comment below and share your experience. Would love other data points – is it only working for small banks, big banks, everyone, no one? Thanks!

What exactly is Plastiq?

For those new to Plastiq, is it a website where you can use a credit card to pay bills with a fee. Bills can include anything from rent, mortgage, car loans, utilities, school tuition, taxes, etc. Plastiq will sent a check to the payer on your behalf. Typically, the fee is 2.5% for American Express, Visa, Mastercard, and Discover but at times there are some promotions to reduce the fee. This is a great option to meet minimum spend requirement or when the points earned outweigh the fee paid (which doesn’t include many credit cards).

New users will also receive 500 FFD’s (fee-free dollars) AFTER they spend $500 with Plastiq. So your first $500 of bill payments will cost you 2.5%, but you’ll then be deposited with the 500 FFD’s which you can then apply to your next $500 payment and pay a 0% fee. That means a total payment of $1,000 will cost you $12.50. You can sign up here, my referral code is 630501. Thanks in advance for using my link!

Some reasons to use Plastiq include: 1) Meet minimum spend; 2) Earn points when you redeem them for more then 2.5 cents per point; 3) Trying to earn a certain benefit, i.e., Southwest Companion Pass, hotel status, airline status, etc. 4) When you earn bonus points on your Plastiq purchase, such as the Chase Ink Preferred card giving 3x points for the transaction.