January 23, 2023|Paypal

by Eric Lipkind

Have you ever wanted to pay hills using a credit card, only to find the merchant wanted to charge fees for using the credit card?   There is a solution – PayPal Bill Pay.

PayPal Bill Pay will allow you to pay certain vendors via credit card with no credit card fee.  For example, my town charges 2.85% to pay my property taxes using a credit card.  If I used Plastiq to pay the bill, I’d be hit with a large similar fee as well.   PayPal Bill Pay has certain pre-populated vendors that accept payment from PayPal Bill Pay.   Luckily my town appeared as one of the pre-populated vendors in PayPal Bill Pay.  I did a test and paid $1 towards my property taxes by entering my account number into PayPal Bill Pay. In 3 business days, my property tax account indeed reflected a $1 payment.   The $1 charge appeared on the American Express Card I designated in PayPal as well.

Paypal Bill Pay seems to accommodate many utility companies as well as financial institutions,  However, you can’t use a credit card to pay financial institutions in Bill Pay.

Going forward, this would be a great way to hit minimum spend towards a sign-up bonus or a retention offer.  If I don’t have any such offers, I will use the AMEX no-annual fee Blue Business Plus card which gives 2 AMEX Membership Rewards points per dollar spent.

In order to use this function, just look for the ‘Pay Bills’ section of the PayPal app or website.   It is very straightforward.

In Summary

PayPal Bill Pay is a great way to pay bills online using a credit card in order to earn points without incurring a credit card fee.