making mortgage payments with gift cards

[Hatfield]

Why would somebody make their mortgage payments using a gift card?

This random question arose as I was reading an article in today’s WSJ. The article was about gift card fraud, which apparently there’s a lot of. Retailers who have not yet upgraded their credit card processing machines to the new smart chip readers are scaling back on gift cards or requiring that they be purchased with cash. That all makes sense to me. But this paragraph left me baffled:

“Kun Niu used to buy Visa gift cards regularly at his local Safeway in Dublin, Calif., but he said the store recently stopped selling them. The computer programmer said he now plans to go to a drugstore to buy the cards, which he uses to pay his mortgage through a third-party website instead of writing a check.”

Ok, so, computer programmer. Presumably he’s a smart guy who’s making decent money. And he’s not in a sketchy line of work. Presumably he gets paid by check and has a bank account. What am I missing here? He’s probably paying at least a 2% premium for the privilege of paying his mortgage with plastic. They’re gift cards, so he’s not in it for the airline miles, not that that would make any sense. But then none of this makes any sense to me. Why would anyone do this?

[no_such_reality]

http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/2012/05/01/one-card-to-rule-them-all/

[BoomerAang]

Certain Amex Blue rewards gets you 6% back for supermarket purchases. Buying gift cards from supermarkets count towards that category.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=BoomerAang]Certain Amex Blue rewards gets you 6% back for supermarket purchases. Buying gift cards from supermarkets count towards that category.[/quote]I’ve had the AMEX Blue Cash Preferred for 18 months now and have been using it to get 6% back in (standalone) grocery stores. I can’t imagine going through that whole gift-card buying routine and transfer those funds twice just to earn more Chase Ultimate Rewards Points (as was suggested by the link in NSR’s post). I’ve had a Chase Freedom Visa as well for about 14 years but the machinations described in the link seemed to me to be way too much to keep track of, unless one is a big spender in a lot of consumer categories. I use my Chase points to get things I need on Amazon. If one just needs groceries, gas, and occasionally lower-cost hotels or motor lodges, then they are only going to earn so many points per year, even if they pay their cable and cell phone bills and insurance premiums with a card. In order to get all those flight and hotel points to spend, one would actually need to spend $50K year on 1-2 credit cards. That’s not me and will never be me cuz I don’t fly much, I don’t rent vehicles anymore and I don’t really need anything. Every 2-3 years, I get a “free night” at a Best Western and that’s good enough for me :=0

[bearishgurl]

Chase Freedom gives 5% cash back for gas in the 1st and 3rd quarters every year. I DO travel the third quarter of every year so I use the Chase card for gas on the road. The 2nd and 4th quarters of the year, I use AMEX Blue Cash Preferred for gas which pays 3% back on standalone gas station purchases.

I don’t use much gas unless I am on the road but this system works out the best for me.

[no_such_reality]

I think that link and the Black Friday Mob stampedes spell out our current election.

People are that desperate and obsessed with having possessions or trips that they will do those kinds of back flips to ‘earn’ them.

[moneymaker]

Has anyone with Verizon Wireless checked their accounts lately? I did recently and found out I have 131,000 points for doing nothing but paying my bill for a few years. Of course like air miles they are watered down so can”t actually buy much with them unless you play the game which I refuse to do.

[Hatfield]

Thanks for all the replies.

Man that seems like an awful lot of work to squeeze out another 50-100 bucks a month.

[Doofrat]

Somebody I used to work with was wondering why he always had these huge grocery bills (his wife did the shopping). Turned out she was buying Nordstrom gift cards at the grocery store to cover up her spending habit.

[joec]

[quote=moneymaker]Has anyone with Verizon Wireless checked their accounts lately? I did recently and found out I have 131,000 points for doing nothing but paying my bill for a few years. Of course like air miles they are watered down so can”t actually buy much with them unless you play the game which I refuse to do.[/quote]

yeah, I probably have about 100k too…I mostly use them for in town dining where they might have a buy 1 get 1 for free or half off so if you were planning to go anyways, it’s a good deal to check first.

[Hatfield]

Holy crap. I have no idea what any of you are talking about so I logged into My Verizon and apparently I have 170,000 points.

[Author]

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