Plastiq No Longer Earning 3X on Rent

For a while, Plastiq was offering many people a fantastic opportunity to earn credit card rewards by paying their rent with their cards. For many, using a Visa credit card, such as the Chase Sapphire Reserve or Chase Ink Preferred to pay rent payments on Plastiq resulted in the purchase coding as “lodging,” which activated the 3X travel category.

This meant that these cardholders would earn 3X on their rent payments, for at least a 4.5% return on their purchase. Even though Plastiq charges a 2.5% transaction fee, it made sense to utilize it since the return was at least 2% greater. Even for payments of $1,000, that extra 2% provided an extra $20 worth of value back, making it a no-brainer to use Plastiq. And if you were able to jump on a Plastiq promotion and take advantage of even lower transaction fees, the deal was even sweeter.

No more 3X?

However, via The Frequent Miler and Doctor of Credit, it seems that most rent/mortgage payments are now registering as 1X with the Chase Sapphire Reserve and even other cards like the Chase Ink Preferred. It’s not clear yet if the change is specific to Chase-issued cards or if it’s been implemented across all issuers.

This is a huge bummer for those of us who really enjoyed cashing in on thousands of extra Ultimate Rewards each month, but it’s definitely not surprising to see it go.

Any time a purchase is unexpectedly coding as a bonus category or a category that applies to a travel credit, I always assume it’s going to be available on a limited time basis. This is exactly what happened to the MPX App activating the Amex airline credits and appears to what happened here. In this case, it probably came down to it being unsustainable due to the high interchange fees of the Visa Infinite card and the rapid growth in popularity of both Plastiq and the Sapphire Reserve.

Should you still use Plastiq?

I think it still makes sense to use Plastiq to pay rent in many instances.

This is still a tremendous way to hit sign-up bonuses. If your rent is around $1,500 a month, that’s like being guaranteed to hit the average sign-up bonus in just two months. Yeah, you’re getting hit with the 2.5% transaction fee, but you’re still netting tremendous value by earning the sign-up bonus, and likely negating much of the fee with credit card rewards, as shown below.

Even if you’re not going for sign-up bonuses, it might still be worth it use Plastiq. You can use a card like the Chase Freedom Unlimited to earn 1.5X on your payment. If you value Ultimate Rewards at 2 cents per point, then that’s a 3% return on those payments and you’re still coming out on top. For cards that earn a flat 2% back, I don’t see any situation where it would be worth it to incur that 2.5% fee, however, unless you just really valued the convenience.

How to still earn 3X on rent payments

You can still earn 3X on rent payment by using RadPad. RadPad recently made its return to the game after some tumultuous times but use some caution because they might not be as stable as you’d like them to be. You’ll need to use the US Bank Altitude Reserve and utilize Apple Pay on RadPad, but that can net you a 4.5% return, which is on par with the Sapphire Reserve.

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