I suppose I almost could have stopped with the title, but that’s no fun, is it?
In this article
Plastiq Raises Fee to 2.85%
Miles and points fan favorite Plastiq is one of the most common ways to help meet minimum spends for bonuses on new credit cards. If you have to spend $5,000 within 3 months but your mortgage is $2,000 a month and outside of the mortgage you would only spend $1,000 on a card in 3 months, you might opt to pay the 2.5% fee to Plastiq in order to charge that mortgage payment.
After all, that would amount to $100 in fees when you might be earning a $500-$1,000 bonus.
The math gets a bit worse now, with $128 in fees for that same bonus.
While you could spend roughly the same to pay someone with a credit card on PayPal or Venmo, you can’t pay things like your mortgage that way.
I suspect many will pay the increase for things like a mortgage but I also suspect many will stop using Plastiq as it’s really no longer super competitive as a bill payment method.
If you schedule a payment by July 1st, you’ll still just pay 2.5%. If you have some FFDs, you may want to hold on to them and use them after July 1st.
Referral Bonuses Have Dropped Like a Rock, Too
You may have noticed this recent change as well. You used to earn 1,000 Fee-Free Dollars for referring friends (after they paid $500 in bills), which made you want to refer friends! This bonus was worth $25 a pop.
Now you earn just 100 Fee Free Dollars when they pay $500 in bills, which will be worth a cool $2.85 after the increase, and the person you refer receives the same measly 500 FFDs after they spend $500.
Overall
It’s not the biggest change but they also used to have lots of promos that brought payments down to 1% or 1.5%. Now you have fewer promos (I’ve had none in a while) and a higher rate.
My guess is that Plastiq is struggling lately and is paring marketing expenses to try and get profitable.
HT: MtM
Thoughts?
Let me know here, on Twitter, or in the private MilesTalk Facebook group.
You can find credit cards that best match your spending habits and bonus categories at Your Best Credit Cards.
New to all of this? My “introduction to miles and points” book, MilesTalk: Live Your Wildest Travel Dreams Using Miles and Points is available on Amazon and at major booksellers.
