Yep, I have to "reluctantly" agree with DYS on his last point: Regardless of the original intention of MBNA to provide the BillPay feature, they seem to be regretful about it at the present time; especially with the view of the recent merger with BofA and the wide usage (FW effects in action) of BillPay to extend Grace Period. Good things like BillPay never last. They may impose fees for certain transactions to render BillPay unattractive financially.

I have already taken precautionary measures by paying most my bills through checkfree directly from my bank account, except a few small bills (via BillPay). I have earned my share of interest from MBNA BillPay over the years anyway. Just don't want to be the last one to turn off the light and take out the garbage for this party.

didYOUsearch said:although nothing more than a wild guess, I think after the BofA merger, the MBNA bilpay program will be limited to paying only those merhcants who already accept CC payments (some newspapers, phone companies, cable, etc).

if you want to pay things like mortgages and cc bills. youll have to do it through Bof A checking acct billpay

Just like other cc companies (e.g., Citi).

Yes they can do this.

Maybe you need to work on your conflict resolution skills. I've had many disputes with various merchants, some of which were resolved in my favor and some of which were not. I have NEVER had a merchant tell me "not to call back."

You lose.

grrarrgh said:I've heard from MBNA CSR's (who likely don't know what they're talking about), that payments to other CC companies also net MBNA a fee slice -- presumably much lower than from a merchant.
They're probably overgeneralizing from fees on cable bills, utility bills, etc and assume that the same holds for CC bills.

Some mild evidence in favor: MBNA billpay is driven by the mycheckfree engine, yet lacks, say, capitalone as a payee (unlike mycheckfree.com). Perhaps this is mild evidence that CC payments using MBNA credit cards _do_ net MBNA a cut as well?

Does anyone remeber how, back in the days when mycheckfree.com allowed payments made _FROM_ cred card accounts to other accounts, CC to CC payments worked?


LOL did you think Checkfree is a charity? MBNA is paying a fee to Checkfree for providing you the ablility to make a payment. Reason companies use Checkfree is it cheaper for them to use checkree billpay system over having there own because the investment in deploying , maintaining and man power to operate it. Checkfree charges banks a flat fee per customer. Then Checkfree mails out checks or pays via EFT and keep the float on the money. If you look at the SEC filing from Checkfree corp stock symbols CHFR you can see that Checkfree get about 9% of there income from interest earned on the float of money being held in there turst account while it waiting to clear the bank.

No MBNA does not collect a fee from Citibank for having Checkfree mail them a check. Come on use commen sense. Do you think you bank collect a fee for cashing you personal checks drawn against your account? When you cash your pay check do they charge you for cashing your paycheck if you deposit it in your bank account? All Checkfree does is debit money from an account then send money out next day via check or EFT and hold the money in trust account till it clears the bank.

do not worry. they gotta love purchase.

bluechalk said:This scares me. I've started using Bill Pay on my Fidelity MBNA card to pay about $1000/month of other credit cards, as well as maybe $2000/month of purchases. Since I'm a FWer, I pay the balance on time every month. Does this mean that I'm at risk of having my account closed, too?

DH: You may be incorrect. You get a lot more than you think by floating. I do not know your reasoning exactly, but basically one can get two-months delay for each Billpay if one pays cc via BillPay right after the closing date. So it is "roughly" $10K for two months interest each month, even doubling $264 annually.

You are correct that if it were that small amount ($22 per year), FWFers would not even bother with it.

DisciplineHedge said:I partly see what you're saying. You float the CC you are using billpay to payoff, but you also float the CC being used for billpay, MBNA in this case. So that's ~40 days of float.

But it still appears to me you are merely shifting your payments by 40 days then. So that's $44, and maybe more compounded.

Not $264, or even $528.

Can someone who knows this clearly help clarify?

You have 2 credit cards. A citibank and an MBNA.

Citibank is dueever month around 10 of the month.
MBNA is due month around 6 of the month.

You make all you charges on the Citibank and pay it in full. On the 9 you use MBNA to make a billpayment to your Citibank Card thus after having the float from Citibank anywhere from 20-50 days depending on the day you made the charge. You will now gain the extra float of between 9 till 6 of next month from MBNA. depending on your due dates from each and closing dates from each you could gain as much as 50 day float if you transfered the balance on the day after the due date from your MBNA card.


The interest gained from the float if the balance is $10K and you keep your money at emegrant at 4% would be 1.0958 per day

DisciplineHedge said:76hhma said:DH: You are incorrect. You get a lot more than you think by floating. I do not know your reasoning, but basically one can get two-months delay for each Billpay if one pays cc via BillPay right after the closing date. So it is "roughly" $10K for two months interest each month, even doubling $264. Do the math again.

If it were that small amount ($22 per year), FWFers would not even bother with it.

I partly see what you're saying. You float the CC you are using billpay to payoff, but you also float the CC being used for billpay, MBNA in this case. So that's ~40 days of float.

But it still appears to me you are merely shifting your payments by 40 days then. So that's $44, and maybe more compounded.

Not $264, or even $528.

Can someone who knows this clearly help clarify?

I think it's multiplied by 12, because this strategy can be repeated each month. For example, your January-March float nets you $22. So does your February-April, etc....

Ok it had been explained more clearly already.

CSRbuddy said:Anyone able to create an indefinite float by some BillPay loop? $0 fee, $0 (or minor) interest BT checks (some even pay rewards), or some have used equity lines...however, it's moot since this perk should end soon. The question is how far do you want to drive this...to the junction of BofA merger? At one time I had nearly all of my credit lines doing billpay, but I wouldn't recommend that anymore.

76hhma said:Tooshy is right, this is not the time to be brave/bold.Exactly. Some one referenced my post from another thread above. Bascially all 4 of my MBNA cards w/ a combinded CL of $20kish were all closed due to my Billpay activity. All the cards were only a year old, but I had never carried a balance or made a late payment.

I was using them to pay my Chase CCs and pre-pay my Citi CCs, getting the float, but more importantly for my needs at the time, increasing my effective CL on my Citi Cards.

Although MBNA told me it was because my income and CL on all my CC were not comparable - they closed my account because their fraud department felt that I could easily use Billpay to max out my cards - take the money and run!

I was exploting the system, they close my account, I deserved it - watch out YOU could be next.