DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

You are getting flights that are partly subsidized by other customers. You are still paying a portion of the flight.

I'm not saying it's not worth using a card that offers kickbacks. I'm saying it might be worth negotiation with a vendor to get a cash discount.

Fredrick Loc: Former NYC, now San Francisco Bay Area

On a big ticket item, I agree. On every day items and monthly bills on auto pay, no.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Are you paying auto pay bills through your checking/savings account or using a card?

I have a few auto pay accounts, but mostly I do it manually. I pay my cards by transfer from checking to the card account and pay the balance every month so there are no interest fees. I get a couple percent kickbacks or points by using my card, but the kickbacks/points are generally less than the amount the card charges the vendor (which seems to be on the order of 3%). I like to pay by transfer manually (I can do it online) because I like to keep my checking account balanced (although I sometimes have to add a 'to balance' entry to actually make my checkbook agree with the bank's version. I only do that if the difference is only a few cents, therefore not worth chasing down the difference by going through all the check transactions).

When Covid came along, people were wary of using cash because there was a push toward hand washing and handling money was not compatible with frequent hand washing. Vendors used to be wary of allowing card use for transactions below a certain amount. Now the cards can be used for anything. Even low cost things like parking meters (although the meter cost has increased for some reason around the same time). In fact some people wanted to do away with cash altogether and use cards for everything.

Now the banks that offer cards have to have infrastructure to handle the cards and there is a cost to that. People have to operate the computers that handle the transactions and although the power costs to run the computer may be low, the salaries of the computer handlers is significant. Therefore there is a fee for a transaction. The fee is paid by the vendor who accepts the card for payment.

I note that a number of vendors are now charging a fee to offset the fee that the card charges them. In particular, local governments will charge a 'transaction fee' if you use a credit card to pay a tax bill. The fee is significantly larger than the fee the card charges in some cases, maybe 5% or more.

Fredrick Loc: Former NYC, now San Francisco Bay Area

In general, although I have several credit cards, I only use one card and try to pay as much as I can on that one card to get miles. I try to do autopay using that one card as much as I can. Then I have that credit card on auto-pay monthly from my checking account. True, some vendors do not allow credit card payments, like Pacific Gas & Electric out here, yet our CSAA auto insurance allows monthly payments on auto pay on the credit card and doesn't charge an additional fee.

I haven't been in a bank branch in a couple of years. In the grocery store I'll use my debit card in the checkout lane to get $200 cash, and it'll last me for six months. I use cash at farmers markets, mostly. If I ever do get a check for some reason, I do a mobile deposit on my iPhone. For probably thirty years I religiously balanced my checking account every month, to the penny. Then one day it dawned on me that over those thirty years I probably had an imbalance maybe six times. In each of those times whenever I tracked down the error, it was "my" error, not the banks error. So I finally stopped balancing my checkbook. Total waste of time.

But the one thing I do is meticulously inspect my credit card statement monthly. I have found erroneous charges on my account that I do get reversed. Interestingly, I did find over the years that several charges I made never showed up, ever.

When my daughter got married I told her as a wedding gift I would pay for their honeymoon. Little did I know that they wanted to go to New Zealand for three weeks! But I did have well over a million miles available on my credit card. I used miles to pay for the hotel and two roundtrip business class tickets on United to New Zealand. The plane tickets used up 240,000 miles. The United ticket agent told me that if I had paid for them instead, it would have cost me $22,000 for the tickets.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Years ago, we got a CC that gave double miles for every purchase. We were planning to fly to Hawaii, so we used that card for everything. We were able to get two roundtrip tickets from NY to HI with the points. Coming home, First Class was almost empty, so they offered us two seats for a nominal charge. Shortly after we got home, the CC went out of business.

The two cards I use now, Sam's and Amazon, give cash back.

I look at my CC accounts at least once a day. I couldn't go back to writing checks and relying on paper statements.

george19

It’s ok if you were going to spend that money anyway…and pay in full at the end of the month.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I'm better off with 1% - 5% from Sam's or Amazon.

pdsdville Loc: Midlothian, Tx

We charge "everything" on our Carnival Mastercharge. Just got back from a totally free trip to Costa Maya, Roatan, and Cozamel including excursions. Hotel night in Galveston was free due to Choice rewards. All we paid for was gas and meals on the way to and back from Galveston. I make sure that the credit card is paid fully every month or it wouldn't be worth it with the interest rates they have. Oh, we did spend a little on souviners, a ceramic iguana and a cross. Just couldn't help it.

whatdat Loc: Del Valle, Tx.

👍. I haven’t flown since 1976, in a float plane in Canada.

huyenguyen408

never deal with citibank, they are a bunch of cheating, robbers and bastards ! Several years ago, I used a Sears credit card, carried by citi. Got a charge of less than $40. Never got a bill, just remind on email, and I could not enter it to find out the charge, could not call either as they only used user name and password, then of course it overdue and they charged $40, not only that, they charged every month after that, then the amount came to $300, I finally agreed to pay the original charge if they dropped all those ridiculous late fees, but no, they still asked for that, they even sold the balance to another company, this company asked me did I pay for the $40 debt, I said I did, so they stop asking. Now citi came back and took my Costco reward or more than $200 ! Do you still want to use this card ?

nervous2 Loc: Provo, Utah

They're kinda cheap!

whatdat Loc: Del Valle, Tx.

I believe there is something called the Fair Credit Reporting Act under which you may have recourse. Of course; if you have already settled your case it probably wouldn’t do any good now. Maybe be useful if needed in the future.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

You could modify that. "never deal with Anybank, they are a bunch of cheating, robbers and bastards ! I use the local credit union - very good.

rpm Loc: Houston, TX

I know on Citi- bank I get a penny a point & yes, pay off your balance every month & they cannot charge you interest. I keep it basic, don't accept any offers or upgrades. Most people probably don't operate this way, but I worked for a Jewish owned steel company. Nothing was wasted...we earned interest; we didn't pay interest.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Banks are, and always have been, for-profit businesses. They have to charge fees to pay their employees and shareholders.
Credit unions are frequently non-profit organizations. Of course they have to pay their employees also so there are some fees, but members of a credit union are shareholders.

Banks vs Credit Unions

When I moved to MA in 1982, I took my old bank account and moved it to a new local bank. Had no problems for many years. Through those years the bank I moved to got bought by another bank. Then that one was bought by another bank. Then that one was bought by Bank of America. Once BoA took over, the fees started to ramp up. My old statements had check images. BoA started to charge a fee to include them. The minimum balance to avoid service charges was raised. After a few more fees I moved to another bank. Then that bank was bought by another and the fees started again. So I moved to a credit union.

The only problem I had with my credit union was that it was local. When I moved out of state I had the choice of driving 2 hours to an office, checking by mail/internet only, or moving to another bank. There weren't any credit unions where I moved to that appealed to me so I was back to a bank with a local branch office. After about 4 years they closed that office so I moved to another bank that did have a local office. Then I moved again and I'm still with that bank. They are working for me so I will stick with them at present.