Here’s a quick tip for using up those last few dollars of a prepaid Visa, Mastercard, or American Express cards with bonuses. When you use up the last bit of an store-specific gift card, the register zeroes out the card automatically and tells you the remaining amount owed. However, if you try this with a prepaid debit or credit card and the amount charged exceeds the amount on the card, you’ll usually just get a flat rejection. This does not necessarily mean there is anything wrong with the card!

The solution? The way to use up the remaining balance on a prepaid-style credit card is to ask for a “split tender” transaction. First, you’ll need to find out the remaining balance on the card using the phone number on the back or by checking the appropriate website. Let’s say it’s $2.57.

Next, go to a store and make a purchase exceeding that number, let’s say $10. Now, ask the cashier for a split tender transaction. You must ask them to charge exactly $2.57 to the prepaid card, and then you can charge the rest on another credit card or pay it with cash. This way, the system won’t be asking for more charging limit than your card actually has.

Smaller retailers might either not know how to do a split tender transaction, or their (point-of-sale) POS system may simply be outdated and not be able to perform one. However, I’ve never had a problem with asking for a split tender transaction at Target or Wal-mart, and I would suspect similar results at other large retailers as they will have modern POS systems. At the very least, you’d just need to switch to a more experienced cashier.

“Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the issuer. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the issuer. This site may be compensated through the issuer’s Affiliate Program.”

If you’re like me, you use multiple credit cards to maximize their rewards in different situations. Gas on one card, groceries on another, and maybe yet another one for restaurants. What if you could just charge everything on one dummy card, and have it automatically route the purchase on the optimal card? That’s what Wallaby Financial is trying to do. Thanks to reader JC for the tip.

I just signed up for their beta, but it doesn’t appear that anyone actually has an actual card yet. Founder Matthew Goldman answered some questions in Mashable, TechCrunch, and also this FW forum post. The card is not actually a new line of credit, so you won’t get a credit check although they will want your Social Security number and other personal info (and all your credit card numbers). After a six-month free period for beta users, the service costs $50 a year. Wallaby says that they’ll save you that much and more via the extra cashback they generate. Well, that depends on how badly you optimize your cards now. 🙂

Although the idea appears simple, the implementation will be very difficult. Here are a few examples… On cards with rotating categories, they say you’ll still have to activate them yourself each quarter. If you don’t, will they know? Next, all your purchases are technically charged on the Wallaby card number, and then re-routed to your actual card with the actual retailer name augmented with a prefix. For that reason, Wallaby currently can’t guarantee that you’ll keep your other card-specific features like extended warranty or price protection. They also don’t know how other add-on programs like Dining Rewards or UPromise will work with the program. Lots of questions, but yet another startup to keep an eye on.

Maybe it’s just me, but Citibank has been sending me more and more snail mail with balance transfer checks inside. I can recognize the envelopes without even opening them. Even though in the past there may have been a good no-fee 0% APR balance transfer offer, I’ve just kept getting 0% with a 3%-5% fee for the past few years so I decided to stop them for both me and my wife due to the sheer volume.

Stopping these balance transfer checks from piling up in your mailbox is actually quite simple; you just have to ask them. Calling in is one option, but the easiest way is to log into your online account and send them a secure online message. Here’s my simple script that you can copy and paste:

Subject: Balance Transfer Checks in Mail

Hello,

I would like to officially request that I no longer be sent promotional balance transfer checks in the mail. I don’t want checks sitting in my mail box. Thank you.

This is the standard Citibank copy/paste reply:

We appreciate the opportunity to assist you and apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced. As you requested, we have processed your privacy choices. Please allow 30 days for these choices to become effective. If there is any way we can be of further assistance, please feel free to contact us.

Done! This works for all the card issuers as far as I’m aware of, not just Citibank, and you can keep getting your paper statements. If you don’t want any unsolicited offers of credit or insurance sent to you, you can also enroll at OptOutPrescreen.com. This is not the same situation as these Citibank checks, because if you already have a relationship with them they can send you junk until you opt out.

ChargeSmart is a bill payment service that allows you to pay many bills with a credit card that usually don’t accept such payments, including mortgages, auto loan, student loans, and utilities. Only participating vendors are eligible, but they seem to have signed up several large companies including Bank of America/Chase/Wells Fargo mortgages, Sallie Mae student loans, and Ally Financial auto loans. In general, it works with all Visa, MasterCard, and Discover branded cards.

Benefits

If you have a rewards credit card, this service gives you the ability earn cashback or frequent flier miles on more purchases. You’ll also be able to take advantage of your card’s grace period since you won’t have to pay up until your credit card bill is due (up to 45 days later depending on when you charge in the statement cycle). If you have a card with a introductory 0% APR on purchases, you could extend the interest-free period even longer.

Another side perk would be for $500+ credit card bonuses, where you use this service to meet the minimum spending requirements. For example, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card will get you $625 in travel after you spend $4,000 in purchases within the first 3 months. If you’re a little short, paying a 2-3% fee to reach that requirement is worth it since a $625 bonus on spending $4,000 is effectively 15.6% back. (You’ll also get 1.25% back on your purchases toward travel as rewards.)

Costs

In most cases, there is a fee involved that depends on the vendor. This may or may not be worth it to you, depending on how much you value your credit card points or miles. Here are a few special cases to consider.

Discover Utility Bill Fee Rebate (Expired)
Previously, if you used a Discover card to pay a participating utility vendor, Discover would have provided an instant rebate your Chargesmart fees. Paying my water bill would have otherwise cost me $16.40 for a $500 payment (3.28%), or $6.10 for $50 payment (12.2%). You’ll even earn all the usual rewards that your Discover card offers. I like the Discover More card for their 5% back on rotating categories feature.

Hidden “Large Payment Security Fee”
You should be aware that their initial fee calculator can be somewhat misleading. I was trying to pay a test payment to a mortgage lender for $2,000, and was given a fee quote in Step 1 for $21.95, which was 1.1% of $2,000. Not bad, I thought, you can get 1.5% cash with something like the Capital One Cash Mastercard.

Step 2 is your address information, and Step 3 is your credit card information. So far so good. But in Step 4, they tacked on a “large payment security fee” which added another $25.71 to make the total fee amount $47.66, working out to 2.4% of $2,000. Trying out some different lenders, the final fee amount seems to always work out to about 2.4% for payments over $1,000 or so.

One last wrinkle… there’s a little box that tells me if I sign up to make this payment every month, I’ll get $10 off this first month’s payment. (You can cancel later.) That would make it $37.66 out of $2,000 or 1.88%. That makes it a little better, but not a screaming deal. But for meeting bonus requirements, a mortgage/auto loan/student loan payment is an easy way to charge something you need to pay anyway.

“Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the issuer. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the issuer. This site may be compensated through the issuer’s Affiliate Program.”

“The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.”

The NY Times has a regular column called “The Ethicist”, and it recently talked about credit card rewards. A reader writes in and asks:

When shopping at big retailers, take up the offer for a new credit card to take advantage of the, say, 10 percent discount. Then when the bill comes, pay it and cancel the account (and risk a slight but temporary dent in your credit rating). I think this isn’t ethical.

The Ethicist disagreed:

That 10 percent discount is a sale by another name. It’s designed to get you in the door and shopping. As long as you buy something, you’re helping to make the store’s promotion a success. These credit-card offers never ask you to promise that you’ll keep the account open. They just ask you to sign up. After that, it’s up to the store to make you feel as if additional purchases are in your interest.

Whenever you are dealing with a big business, I always prefer to look at these things from a practical point of view. Retailers and financial companies are not offering these promos out of the kindness of their hearts. Their promotions are carefully planned to make them money overall, often in ways most people don’t even know about. Does a sale on milk mean that you have to buy all your other groceries at the store? No, but since you’re there you probably will buy something else. Are you obligated to? I don’t see how.

The real reason why credit cards have to offer things like $500 to sign-up for a new credit card is that people are really lazy. Most people have the same bank account they opened when they were 18 years old, and the same auto insurance company as their parents because by default that was their first insurance company. Most people that qualify for promotions have good to excellent credit scores and don’t even carry balances. It’s just that change is hard, and new customer acquisition costs are notoriously high in the financial industry.

You’ll notice that many sign-up bonuses now require a minimum spending requirement. Again, this is to make you put the card in your wallet or purse and use it several times, hopefully building up that habit. Also notice how credit card rewards focus on “everyday” categories like groceries. Another small psychological nudge.

I always look at new credit cards as trials. I will try them out, and see how I like it. I give them a chance – that’s all that I owe them. If I do, then I keep it. I’ve paid annual fees on the Starwood American Express card for years because I ended up discovering the benefits are worth it to me. If I don’t like it, then I cancel. That seems like the ethical thing to do.