Ok, I know there are a lot of people in EF who not only hate using credit cards, but also discourage people from using them.
I personally think they are quite useful and beneficial.I own a credit card which helps me to earn miles from my shopping (usually gas, clothes, but no grocery) and I use those miles to buy flight tickets.
Considering we are all paying a considerable amount for accommodation, wouldn't it be great to pay it with the plastic and earn good amount of miles from this.
I have googled it and most of the services I have found are not valid in Switzerland.
Paypal can be an option, but it requires the landlord to sign up for this service. I believe we all agree that that is not really an option for Switzerland
Finally, here is my question; does anybody know a way or service to pay the rent with CC without any action required by the landlord?
Disclaimer: The search did not give me any thread on this specific topic
I actually had the same idea and inquired about it at my rental agency. They told me in a very stern stone, that "NO, it is not possible to live somewhere on borrrowed money!"
What do these people think a mortgage is, then? Pennies from heaven?
Maybe from a landlord's point of view, it's too much of a risk and better to have the money in the bank but plenty of people here do live on "borrowed" money. Having said that, I don't think the bank would be too thrilled if you made your mortgage repayments with your credit card...
I don't know why my thread is moved to housing from Finance part, but it doesn't matter.
Lost in board, I understand your point. But try to look at from this point too; what difference does it make if I transfer my money directly to my landlord's account or to my bank as CC payment. In the end, this is a transaction I have to make every month, why not gain something in the process
Thought about that too, but the interest on withdrawing cash is really high, even if you pay back on the same day. Most of the banks usually charge a minimum fee for cash withdrawals.
Paying your rent via credit card would result in your landlord incurring a fee for the transaction. Credit card companies charge retailers a fee (generally a small percentage of the sale) for payments processed via credit card.
I would assume that your landlord wants to receive 100% of the rent, not 97 or 98%.
Certainly. However, I believe it is a matter of negotiation, isn't it? We can even share the fee as well.
The landlord has benefits in this too. With this they can ensure constant flow of the rent.
Ok maybe it is not reasonable to expect this from a private person (the landlord);however, in case of big agencies like wincasa (actually a subsidiary of Credit Suisse), Livit, etc, this is should be perfectly feasible.
I don't see how allowing payment by credit card gives a benefit to landlords. They are already ensured a constant flow of rent based upon the contract that tenants have signed and the built-in contractual consequences of non-payment of rent.
With all due respect what you are asking for is completely dumb!
What credit cards are doing is basically offering kickbacks to customers so that they use their expensive facilities! It might seem like it's the same price to you but it's not, the retailer/landlord as highlighted above has to pay around 5% fee to allow these payments! And would subsequently have to factor this into his pricing.
I don't want my rent to go up by 5% thank you very much! Not for the poxy points retailers think I'm interested in!
If I read this right the OP wants to propose an increase of 5% to receive a benefit of perhaps a couple of hundred francs a year since putting around 20K CHF on a card usually only gives about 200CHF in frequent flier points!!
Can't see the logic in this one and it increases the risk to landlords of non payment!!
respect..dumb.. really? you couldn't find a better word?
No guys, please read my original post carefully. I am looking for a way which will not change anything for the landlord, so that they can not increase the prices. So your point is.... how should I say....dumb ..ok ok, not valid.
Here is an idea how it might work: I pay my rent with my CC one month in advance, the service provider uses this money for a month, then transfers this money to my landlord when the payment is due. It may not be perfect, but I certainly think it is worth to think about.
Come on guys, we are brainstorming in here.no reason to react with emotions.
What you are looking for, doesn't exist, will not exist and should not exist.
Rubbish idea, as keeping the money in a bank account without risk, will not be enough to cover the 5% fee charged by the credit card company, and certainly won't be enough for the service provider to make a living out of.
From your example, considering the credit card company charges 5% fee.
2200x12x0.05 = 1,320
That means the landlord will receive CHF1320 less in rent, and therefore has to increase your rent by CHF110 a month, now why on earth would you want to give the credit card company a proportion of this CHF110.- when you can just stick it in a bank account and buy the bloody ticket to your home country yourself????
Brainstorming terminated. Please close the thread!
The only party that will definitely benefit here is the CC company because they charge at least 2% of the value of each transaction typically to the retailer who sometimes passes the charge on to customer). The points you gain per transaction are only worth 1%. So unless you have a rather daft landlord this will never happen. Further more I would encourage you not to propose this at all to you landlord/agency as they may assume that you are having trouble making payments and decide that they want rid of you ASAP.
I would disagree with you love doctor , this option does exist in other places and I find it a convenient way to collect miles and other random shennanigans credit cards offer when you engage in commerce.
Ok, you don't want such a service, fine don't take it. nobody is forcing you mate.
I am in favor of it and would appreciate if you have some constructive approach.
My idea might seem rubbish to you. Sorry to hear, but I can not do anything about that.
But here are some more detail on the subject. If you are a service provider with some considerable amount of customers, then you can negotiate with the banks for better fees, not necessarily 5%. You can even make an agreement with some specific bank to promote their credit card in return for some discount. Also, I am not suggesting to keep the money on interest, but rather make use of the money like investments, currency trades, low-risk shares,etc. Isn't this what banks are doing anyways?
This is just an idea, maybe the numbers will not add up, who knows but it is no excuse not to talk about it.