mann, I wish I could. I could earn some serious rewards with my Discover card.

Your mortgage company would have to have a contract with the credit card company to accept CC payments. If they aren't set up with Discover or VISA or MC they can't take your payments on a card.

I do not see why any mortgage company would do this though.

Sure, you know YOU can pay it off every month but a lot of people would be using their card to get themselves even further into debt when they are unable to make their mortgage payments and the whole scheme would eventually topple leaving the person bankrupt. This is not something the mortgage company wants to encourage.

I do know of a guy who put his downpayment for real estate on his charge card as a cash advance. He was very financially stable though, and this cash advance did not nearly even reach his card limit.

When you apply for a mortgage, the company looks at all your credit cards and take into consideration BOTH, how much you owe on them, and also what your charge limit is, just in case you ever max them out. They want to be sure your income will match the projected payments on a maxed out card.

But the only answer you will get is from your mortage company. As I said before, if they don't have a contract with a card company, it is out of the question.

I bet few mortgage companies would allow it. They wouldn't want to be out the several percent that the credit card companies get from transactions. What's the mortgage company's incentive

I called my mortgage company. I presently have the payment deducted from my checking account. They don't allow credit card payments. It's a shame there isn't much out there that would benefit consumers in even the smallest way.

Very interesting thread.

I just got a set of those "convenince" checks from my new cash rewards card -- one can get up to $300 back each year and of course, no annual fee. The CC offers 0% for like six months for money charged via those checks, and the checks are only valid through the end of August.

I though about writing one for my August mortgage payment -- heck I'll be happy to use up the CC's $$ while my cash collects interest. I financed my last car with a one-year loan at 0% -- I had the cash to pay for it upfront but decided to let my money collect interest while I made (high) car monthly payments (I definitely came out ahead). And I bought a fridge with 0% financing and no payment for six months -- I had the money saved up in my emergency fund and payed off the full amount at 5 months and 29 days. (I marked it on the calendar so I wouldn't forget.)

But when it comes to a CC and 0%, I am extremely leery. I took the conservative approach and shredded those 0% checks.

What do you think? I wonder if most morgage companies, like cheerful's, would reject a CC check.

I think they would take a cc check. It doesn't have the fees for them that a cc transaction would. We tried to see if we could do our mortgage on cc also. No go. Of course lately, we can't even get a ticket with the airline miles we are building up and had to buy them. I think I'll be looking for a cc with something besides airline miles. I don't even need the rewards stuff from AMEX anymore. Anyone know of good rebate cards? Most of our stores don't take Discover.

Gloria

Gloria -- My favorite reward is CASH, which can be converted into whatever I want, including a contribution to my savings account.

I just got the Citi rewards MC -- 1% back on all purchases and 3% back on grocery store and pharmacy purchases and no annual fee. Beware -- the maximum reward per year is $300. When I hit that, I'll switch to another card.

BTW, you can google "rewards cards" (not in quotes) to get a passel of choices. I googled "cash rewards card".

Thanks for the tip, parrot. We have all of the utilities on a card, so we'd leave that one in place, but I'd rather use something else for all of my grocery shopping, household stuff and gas. It sounds like a cash one wouldn't last me long, but I could use different cards to make it last longer.

Gloria

All the sleazy (and they are all sleazy) CC banks have to do to change the terms of those free chas advance scams is to send you a letter. And the letter is usually a little booklet with microscopic text slipped in with your bill that is scientifically assemlbed so that it is unappealing to read.
Don't mess with cash advance or credit card checks. They are bad news. Aint nothing free in this life. Come to grips with that.

Mortgage lenders don't take credit cards because it costs a fortune in fees from the payment processers.

Even if they did, they'd most likely charge a convenience fee to take them and so that would cancel out the reward points you were hoping to get.

builtglo,

How do you put your utilities on your credit card? We could not do it with ours for water or power. We have Ameren CIPS.

Thanks.

As it has been said before. >>The company MUST have a contract with the credit card company.People just don't understand how CCs work. I used to work in retail at a small place that did not take cards because the owner ran a very small profit margin and could not afford to pay the 3 percent. People would come in and BEG to use their card. I had to keep expaining that we did not deal with CC companies. We did not have a contract. They would just keep begging, saying "PLEEEEEESE. Just this one time, OK?", like it was an option that could be exercised on a whim.

Another place I worked at did take cards and people would ask if we could have the credit card receipt have another store's name on it, like a grocery store or something, so that their spouse wouldn't know what they bought. This was NOT an uncommon request. (Maybe it was because of the type of store we were.) :) I tried to expain that if we ran it through with another businesses name and ID then that THEY would get the $$$, not us. People just don't understand how these things work.

Also, some credit card companies will not deal with certain businesses, as is their right. Credit card companies can drop undesirable accounts.

Credit card companies are not government agencies, they are businesses who set their own rules and whose goal is PROFIT, not public service.

The only ay you will know if you can charge an item or service is to ask the seller. It is totally up to them how they run their business.

Back before I paid off my mortgage, I had the option to pay with a CC, but of course, for a fee. As I recall it was about $25 per payment. Today I can pay my utilities with a CC, again for a fee of about $5. So what's the benefit? I do however pay my CC bills and several utilities over the internet or over the phone, saving the cost of postage, check and even time and gas to mail the bills. I figure I save about $25/year just by doing this. Not a retirement fund, for sure. But I can use it better than the post office or check printers can.

Another little tidbit about CC operations that many people don't realize is that if you manually run a card, that is by punching in the card # instead of swiping it, the business is charged a higher percentage. Plus, lest we forget, the business is charged when a customer makes a purchase, and also if the customer returns the item for a refund. And AmEx is a higher fee than Visa, Master or Discover. Never understood why anyone would want an AmEx anyway, except for the snob appeal. I guess I never had the ego to get one.

minigreenhouse, we just called all of the utility companies/trash/water and asked if we could open an account so the bill was automatically charged to the cc. Even our HOA took them. ALL said yes, but it got so popular here the gas company changed the policy. They will still take cc, but you have to go through a different process and pay the fee. It's very convenient for us. No bother with when the bill is due or writing all of those checks. Just pay the one cc bill and we are done (except for the gas bill now.)

cynic, I know AMEX always advertised for the snob appeal, but we have just found them to be a better company for any disputes over VISA and MC. Very few places here take Discover. With the amount of online purchasing we do, it's worth it to us to pay the fee. In our earlier days,
AMEX was very good for business use and offered a line of credit that most small businesses couldn't get through local sources. I don't see it as an ego thing.

Gloria

Hi all, I charge my Cable, and telephone to my credit card. I either go in to the office/store or call on the telephone. No charge. I pay my CC off at the end of every month and get reward points. I even charge my Golden Corral lunches and sometime McDonalds. Next time I get my Elec bill I'm calling to see if I can pay this way.

Nearly everybody is familiar with credit cards and sure, you can probably pay all or most of your BILLS and PURCHASES with a CC but the person who started this thread was asking about making MORTGAGE PAYMENTS with a CC. A mortgage payment is a different animal.

A mortgage is *already* a LOAN and I just don't see many mortgage companies wishing to allow you to pay off your *loan* with another *loan*. Too many people could fall into a downward spiral.

Although Cynic did say he used a CC to pay his mortgage for an additional fee. The only answer Cheerful1 is going to find useful is the answer that HER mortgage company gives her. It is 100% up to them whether they contract with a credit card company.

I use my CC for miles.....saving for another free airfare.

Here is some good news folks; I found this company named CardIt. They are the option you all have been looking for.
It was so cool it worked like a typical charge so I got my miles. There is a fee but worth it, I did ask if there is a discount and the are releasing membership program in the comming months. Yup, it's here you just got to look for it. It's fairly new so they are slowly making way, but here is the secret cardit.com or call customer service (866)55-CARDIT. Yeh, Happy Holidays hope my 2 cents helps...

I work part time for a very successful couple that pays anything that they can, business or personal, with their airline rewards credit cards. For their business it does include most vendors that they deal with. Why do so many of these businesses take cards and pay the percentage? Becuase bad checks and bad debt in general can easily take a big chunk of the profit. They pay off their credit cards every month and never pay interest. They travel ALOT plan well ahead of time. Not only are they getting the miles, but with the float time they get waiting for each credit card payment they let large amounts of money sit in their money market account. I know most of us won't get they amount of benefits these folks get, but if you can get some benefit, why not? I'm looking into rewards cards that I can get directly through my bank and pay on-line from my checking at least once a week. We have no credit card debt now, and won't ever let that build up again, but if I can work it into some benefit for me I will try.

Read through this thread again. Just had a "duh" moment. Just occurred to me that many people (everyone with FHA loans) escrows the taxes and insurance on the house payment. If the mort. co. paid the cc fee, they'd also have to pay it on the taxes and insurance. Few would like that without a healthy fee to cover it and the inconvenience of the additional accounting involved.

But I just paid my phone bill on my CC. Didn't say there was any fee and showed the amount to be charged as the bill amount. I just checked my account and that was all I was charged. Granted, it's not a lot, but what the heck, might as well get the "credit" for it. They recently changed it to allow electronic payments without fee and now have the cc option. Before it was a $5 charge to pay over the internet or via CC. So I paid 4 months at a time and now I can pay it with the other bills at the computer.

We put our monthly insurance payments on ours. No advantage to prepay so I spread it out.

I had a cash advance sent to my checking account and paid off my house with a 0% card, now I have the title to my home. It definately beats paying all that interest that I would have paid. You have to be very disciplined to pay off the 0% card/s, and if it isn't paid off about a month before the introductory rate expires, transfer the funds to another 0% card. What ever fees you have to pay is far less than the monthly compounded interest that you will get on the mortgage. Keep paying on the card/s until credit card is expired. Don't do this if you are not committed to pay off credit card/s

As this question is almost 5 years old, I think the OP has figured it out by now....