<p>My father-in-law pays for everything with a credit card to get the miles/bonus cash. he even paid for his mother's funeral (casket and all) with the credit card! who would have thought you could do that!</p>
<p>We use Discover and get about $200 ea semester. I hand carry the payment to Sears at least a week in advance of due date. Discover has been known to be late posting mailed payments. It is a pain sometimes waiting in line to pay a bill and sometimes I have to write two checks to Discover, sometimes the cashier feels she has to let everyone in line know I am paying a large amount-but it is still worth $200. The school does not charge a fee.</p>
<p>We purchased our van via credit card & got a great deal--no interest for 6 months + cash back @ 1% (or maybe it was higher). In any case, we got a nice cash rebate check back that year & paid the entire balance before they started charging interest.</p>
<p>USoCal requires a $65 applicatoin fee & then allows you to pay over 10 months, including making two changes (in amount) at no additional charge. They let you pay via credit card, check, or most other forms of payment at no additional fee.</p>
<p>Lamom:</p>
<p>Can't you pay your Discovery card online? I pay my VISA bills that way. It works well.</p>
<p>My son's college also uses tuition management services. We've set up the 10 month payment plan, directly billed to our credit card and then I pay on-line through bill pay with our bank. Couldn't get much more painless - unless kids had a full ride!</p>
<p>Lovetocamp:</p>
<p>I mislead you as to the name: it's "branded," not "banded."</p>
<p>one of my friends used to pay his tuition by credit card. i never looked into it for myself - always sent a check. Although i do get cash back for purchases on my card so maybe i should have done that... hmm....</p>
<p>if you do, i'd open up a new account with a big limit so that even if you put a few thousand on it there wont be much of a dent made on it and it wont affect your credit rating if it's pulled at tha time.</p>
<p>I just recieved a cash back check of 38 dollars which means that since i got my new credit card in september or october i've spent 3800 dollars on my card.</p>
<p>For many schools, there are payment plans where for a set up fee of up to $65 or so, you can make monthly payments of equal amounts toward college tuition & expenses over a period of about 10 months or so. This makes the monthly charges a bit less overwhelming, at least from my perspective as a parent.</p>
<p>We get quite a bit of cash back from our various credit cards--don't have any that don't give me cash back. Some cards limit cash rebates to $300 or $500 in a year. I've gotten the max on several of them, which is why we have a number of credit cards, all of which we pay off in full & never carry a balance. It works well for us & we don't need to carry around as much cash or write many checks.</p>
<p>Brown doesnt accept payment by credit card.</p>
<p>HImom,</p>
<p>As you point out, there are advantages to paying with a credit card, even over cash. You can sometimes gain with extended warranties, help in resolving bad merchandise, and protection from loss and fraud, if you follow the specifics of the various consumer protection acts.</p>
<p>It is interesting to note that debit cards, which many of our kids find even more convenient, lack many of the statutory protections that credit cards have. Could be worth a chat with the kids?</p>
<p>A note on tuition payment plans: If you do the math, you would find out they are at best a break-even deal. You start paying before the regular bill is due, so the early payments draw interest which balances out what you pay after the regular due date. I agree the plans can be convenient and helpful from a cash flow point of view, and the price is low, but you are certainly not saving anything. </p>
<p>If you are just taking money you've already set aside for those monthly payments, you'd be ahead by skipping the tuition payment plans, unless it gives you a back door to using your charge card. (although, with the low interest rates of the past few years, it probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference. As rates rise now, that could change.) There could be exceptions, but I have yet to see one.</p>
<p>Lovetocamp (the OP) and I have had several pm discussions about this. I use a Marriott Visa card to pay USC tuition. Added to the points I get from staying at Marriotts, and buying Marriott timeshares, my wife and I have stayed at Marriotts for free with free airfare for the European trips for seven days in London (twice); five nights on les Champs Elys</p>
<p>newmassdad- you reminded me of something that recently came up with my D. Since she is now working she is paying her Dad for her car insurance. She did not have checks for her checking account. Her reasoning was she had never needed any since she does online banking. She finally did get checks and we showed her how to use them.
She also signed up for a credit card when she opened her student checking account. She just said to me last week that she had not used her credit card since she last bought books and she didn't know why someone would use their credit card when they had a debit card. I was surprised at how naive she was about many consumers spending habits.
I am thrilled she is in the habit of not buying things that she can't pay for out of her liquid cash.
I try for the most part to use either Discover or American Express where I get points that can be used at various hotels and airlines.</p>
<p>Disclaimer: I am on both sides of this issue as I am a small retailer that accepts credit cards and have rewards cards myself that I use to attend trade shows.</p>
<p>In the past five years, my sales have shown a dramatic shift in payment type from cash/check to credit/debit card. It used to be that 40% or so of my sales were on credit cards. It's now closer to 70% credit cards. And some days, it's as high as 80%. I track this number daily for my own information, as well as average credit card ticket, average cash ticket, and average overall ticket.</p>
<p>My costs for credit card processing are up -- both the percentage charged by the processor, and also in the total monthly take the processor is getting because of the volume of sales they process. Don't think that the retailer is paying the freight on this. Every item in my store has had a price increase intended to compensate me for the credit card processing costs. </p>
<p>Basically, the retailer is paying for your rewards dollars -- and the credit card company is making their money from you on fees and interest.</p>
<p>Onthe flip side -- using this to <em>my</em> advantage -- I charge inventory for the shop on the credit cards, pay it off every month and use the rewards points for essentially free buying trips. (Oh shucks, the points are only good at the Marriott -- guess I'll have to stay in the suite hotel instead of the bargain place down the block where I'd have to pay cash!)</p>
<p>My other 'vent' on this one is the number of sales people trying to sell you <em>their</em> processing package. There has got to be way too much money in this with all the people pouinding the pavement or burning up the phone lines to ostensibly 'save me money'.</p>
<p>newmassdad -
I don't understand why you say that we are paying earlier with a credit card then we would if did just a monthly payment plan via check or automatic withdraw. Our son's college requires payment the first of June, and that's the day we'll charge it on our credit card. Our credit card is also due the first or second of the month so that charge will be on the July bill.</p>
<p>We ALWAYS pay our balance off every month so no interest charges and no annual fee for our credit card. We will be paying tuition management $55 for paying monthly instead of in a lump sum, but we couldn't do the lump sum anyway. On this same charge card we also do a few other small bills as well as regular monthly stuff - groceries, gas, etc. At the end of the year we have a plane ticket. If I made the same payments with my checking account, I would have the same expenses, pay the same amount have no plane ticket...</p>
<p>kathieep, </p>
<p>I may not have been clear: It is when you use a tuition management plan (you know, ten easy payments...oh, forgot, that's late night TV), that you pay earlier. If the TMP allows you to charge those payments to a credit card, then you may have the best of all worlds, given the credit card float, but I've never seen such a TMP.</p>
<p>At most colleges, tuition is due to the college much later than payments would be to the TMP. For instance, at University of Michigan, fall fees are due September 30. Their monthly payment plan begins July 1, so you would be making several payments in advance of the normal tuition due date. </p>
<p>This is a typical example, although your mileage may vary.</p>
<p>At USoCal, you make monthly payments on the 1st of every month for 10 months. Not sure exactly how this would compare to when they'd want their lump sum tuition payments but for our cash flow, it's much easier to make 10 monthly payments than two much larger sums. USC charges $65 to apply for the payment plan.</p>
<p>I for one would be happy if fees & tuitions were lower, even if it meant we couldn't charge tuition & fees. Since they aren't (& there is no discount for paying by cash or check), I figure we might as well get whatever "rebates" or "points" we can from our charges & payments with the "float."</p>
<p>cnp55: my DH and I have a small internet-based business. ALL of our customers pay with credit cards, and I have no problem with the fees they get. One: we get the payment upfront; two: they verify that the person is legit (we use the CVV codes); three: we never have to carry money to the bank or worry about our employees skimming it. In addition, since we charge as much of business expenses as possible, we have on occasion sold stuff that we haven't yet paid for--which is kind of the ultimate in working the float.</p>
<p>At one S's school we paid lump tuition on air miles card and paid off with first bill--no charges. At D's school they will charge your cc with 4 monthly payments for each semester. Other S's school will not accept cc's. Really liked charging the tuition. My D went to Germany free on airmiles from school tuition payments. My sons and H spent spring break in Vegas with no airline charges due to tuition payments. Sure wish Wake would take credit cards!</p>