Plastiq has announced a change whereby select payment categories will no longer have the cash advance issue that has plagued Visa personal cards for some time. The following categories will go through fine on all cards:
- Residential Rent & HOA Fees
- Commercial Rent
- Taxes & Government Fees
- Utilities (Electricity, Cable, Internet, Telecom)
- Tuition (including daycare and camp)
[Our Plastiq contact did caution me that while these categories should not have any cash advance problems based on how they are coded, it’s ultimately up to a card issuer to decide how to treat it (e.g. an issuer can decide to self-define it as a cash advance).]
All other categories (e.g. mortgage) are still subject to the old limitations whereby select Visa cards might have issues. Plastiq will always tell you if there’s a cash advance issue, so you don’t need to worry if they don’t flag you, even if you have not reviewed the rules.
To review the Plastiq criteria, there are two separate limitations with Plastiq:
- Limitations on which categories you can pay; some things can’t be paid at all (e.g. a credit card bill) and some things can’t be paid with specific issuers (e.g. you can’t use Amex for mortgage payments.
- Separately, some cards have a cash advance issue. This issue does not affect ANY Mastercard, Discover, or Amex payments; only Visa. This issue does not affect Visa business cards. This issue does not affect Visa personal cards from Wells Fargo or Capital One. It also isn’t really a problem with Chase cards (more detail in our review). Going forward, this issue does not affect the above-mentioned categories even on a personal Visa card from an effected bank like BofA.
Full details can be found in our Plastiq review. You can review the rules on the Plastiq site here.
If you are new to Plastiq, you can signup with our referral link and get $500 in free processing (valued at $12.50) after spending $500 in paid processing. If you have a business, you can get $4,000 in free processing immediately (valued at $100) – more details on that here.
