Is Using ChargeSmart to Earn Miles on Your Mortgage a Good Idea?

Posted by Noob Master on Aug 21, 2012 in ChargeSmart, Credit Cards, Meeting Spend, Miles, Uncategorized | 4 comments

Noobers often email me and ask if there is a way to pay their mortgage with a credit card. Yes, there is a mystical way to pay your mortgage, auto, or student loan with a credit card through ChargeSmart. However, there’s a fee attached, so beware.

I see it in everyone’s eyes when I’m explaining to them to run ALL their expenses through a rewards credit card…It’s like a lightbulb goes off in their head and they think, “My mortgage, my mortgage, that’s my biggest expense… I’ll earn a s*&# load of miles and meet that hefty minimum spend in the process.”

Easy, tiger. Before you get all excited, there’s a fee that needs to be considered when using ChargeSmart. We will get to that later.

Here’s how to pay your mortgage online with ChargeSmart.

1. Go to ChargeSmart.com and Click on Mortgage

click on mortgage

2. Fill in Lending Details

• Choose Lender (Chase holds my mortgage. I like to think it helps when I’m applying for rewards credit cards.)
• Payment Address
• Lending Institution Account Number
• Payment Amount

fill in lending details

Once you fill in the details, a fee for $22.95 will show up next to the payment amount. At the bottom, you can see you will be able to save $10 on this payment. After filling out the details click continue.

3. Enter Your Personal Info

enter your info

4. Enter Your Credit Card Info

You must use a Visa, Mastercard, or Discover. American Express can’t be used at this time.

fill in your c.c. info

5. Review Payment and Get $10 Off

Review your payment to make sure everything is in order.

Review

As you can see, there are two fees. The $22.95 ChargeSmart Fee and the $10.86 Large Payment Security Fee. For a house payment of $1,500, the total fees are $33.81. But you can drop your first payment by $10 by opting in for automatic payments. You can quit auto payments after two additional months. Now the total cost is $23.81 for the first month.

Is ChargeSmart worth it?

Yes, and no. If you’re using ChargeSmart just to get miles for your mortgage, then I don’t think it makes much sense. The $33.81 in fees for 12 months would be $405.72 and for a $1,500 monthly payment, you would net 18,000 miles/points. I wouldn’t spend $405.72 for 18,000 miles.

BUT (and a big BUT), if you’re meeting minimum spending requirements, it makes perfect sense. Paying your mortgage will easily allow you to take care of 1 or 2 minimum spend requirements. And we all know that rewards cards have some pretty lucrative sign-up bonuses attached to them.

If I needed to meet a minimum spend requirement on a card of $3,000 in 3 months for 40,000-50,000 miles/points- I would gladly pay the ChargeSmart fee of $101.43 (3 months w/out the $10 discount).

ChargeSmart is just another tool to use when trying to meet minimum spends so you can rack up the miles and travel the world for pennies. But please don’t put your mortgage on a credit card if you aren’t responsible enough to pay it off right away!

I hope this helps, and holla at me if you have any questions.

Chase Sapphire Preferred^SM

— Noob Master