Billhop – using Amex for council tax?

[hugo r]

Trying to hit the 3k spend on the BAPP card to get the 70k , was wanting to pay council tax using Amex however they won’t accept

Read online that you can use billhop, are they safe and secure , if I use them how long will it take for them to send the money to the council

Do they take Amex

[Alex G]

Cheaper to pay in small amounts at the Co-op if your council allows payment via Paypoint or Allpay.

I used Billhop years ago. Works fine, but they used to charge 3% and it was about a week.

Hopefully, someone will have more up to date info.

[can]

+1 for Paypoint and Coop. Why pay Billhop?

They have a limit for payments thou, it may take 2-3 trips. And it’s not just Coops, I use it with Budgens in London.

[Peter K]

Billhop are safe. Used them a few times. It is about a week for the payment to go through as mentioned. Do it on a laptop is my advice. The final payment button was missing on my mobile end of last year so the payment didn’t go through until I went on the pc and found the final confirmation button.

[PeteM]

What was the Co-Op limit per transaction again, please?

[drdan]

£200 at paypoint…

[drdan]

BTW…unusually Blackpool accepts PayPal…couldn’t be easier…

[Rui N.]

PeteM wrote:

What was the Co-Op limit per transaction again, please?

£200
But you can do multiple payments in one transaction. Just ask to do 2 × £200
(Or 3, 4, etc.) and you can pay more in one go.

[TooPoorToBeHere]

I’ve billhop’ped a few times over the last couple of weeks – trying to get 2 cards to £10k quickly.

It’s not as efficient as other things but I used it for business expenses so deduct the 3% against CT, and the Avios the payments generate (on top of the bonuses) are worth something, so it’s not *too* bad.

Could you pre-pay your gas & power supplier/s instead perhaps? One of mine took Amex – I put 6 months worth of bill on it which made their automation mail the next day that the DD has been reduced to £1/month. The other is Visa/MC only.

The co-op idea is good but there are only a couple near here and they’re known for staff incompetence and long queues.

[BuildBackBetter]

drdan wrote:

BTW…unusually Blackpool accepts PayPal…couldn’t be easier…

Many councils accept PayPal. People don’t realise it…

[davefl]

For those of us in the impoverished north, it appears Asda have paypoint as well as my local Texaco station. I’ll be giving them a try when my overinflated ctax bill arrives.

[PeteM]

Thanks guys!

[polly]

@hugo r
If you are short a few £100, why not get grocery store gift cards in advance for both petrol and food shop, or Amazon GCs. As above log on and try to prepay any of your bills that take either Amex or PayPal. BT take Amex via PP which helps. Utility co now more take Amex.
Ongoing tho, get paypoint cards for eg Affinity water, which we top up. And did also with bt before they started accepting PayPal. EE take Amex. Octopus, Bulb. Only use `bill hop if you have exhausted all above avenues. But they are very good if you want a 241 voucher really quickly, to get to the 10k. That’s the only time we really would use it. Lots of options out there.

[hugo r]

Hi polly unfortunately our council (Tunbridge wells) doesn’t take Amex or PayPal , we use SSE for gas and elec they don’t take Amex and sky for broadband mobile etc again they don’t take Amex … need to hit the 3k spend quick as only have 2 months left

[Alex G]

You could book a fully refundable hotel for next Xmas on Hotels.com, and cancel it in a few months once the bonus Avios have been transferred to your BAEC account.

I don’t know if Amex would attempt to recover the sign up bonus? Others will know.

[Rob]

Amex account will go negative – bad if you plan to keep the card long term, not an issue otherwise.

[Traveljunkie]

davefl wrote:

For those of us in the impoverished north, it appears Asda have paypoint as well as my local Texaco station. I’ll be giving them a try when my overinflated ctax bill arrives.

Word of warning AMEX consider paying through PayPal as a ‘Cash Advance’ and fees will be incurred.

I was told just now ‘ The option to transfer amount from AMEX credit card to any other UK credit card or bank account or any international overseas card is not permitted in the UK market

[Rui N.]

Paypoint has nothing to do with PayPal.
But not true that paying through something through Paypal is necessarily a cash advance.

That 2nd paragraph is relevant to exactly what?

[Peter K]

Traveljunkie wrote:

davefl wrote:

For those of us in the impoverished north, it appears Asda have paypoint as well as my local Texaco station. I’ll be giving them a try when my overinflated ctax bill arrives.

Word of warning AMEX consider paying through PayPal as a ‘Cash Advance’ and fees will be incurred.

I was told just now ‘ The option to transfer amount from AMEX credit card to any other UK credit card or bank account or any international overseas card is not permitted in the UK market

Using amex for Paypal or Billhop is not a cash advance, I have experience of this within the past 2 months. However, Amex do not allow Billhop to be used to pay financial institutions. HMRC and other genuine bills however, they do allow.

[JDB]

Peter K wrote:

Traveljunkie wrote:

davefl wrote:

For those of us in the impoverished north, it appears Asda have paypoint as well as my local Texaco station. I’ll be giving them a try when my overinflated ctax bill arrives.

Word of warning AMEX consider paying through PayPal as a ‘Cash Advance’ and fees will be incurred.

I was told just now ‘ The option to transfer amount from AMEX credit card to any other UK credit card or bank account or any international overseas card is not permitted in the UK market

Using amex for Paypal or Billhop is not a cash advance, I have experience of this within the past 2 months. However, Amex do not allow Billhop to be used to pay financial institutions. HMRC and other genuine bills however, they do allow.

Amex could, if they wished to, charge Billhop as a cash advance as that is the reality of the transaction. I think that Amex has a bit of a funny relationship with Billhop but they allow it because the fee and Billhop’s notional compliance efforts in not paying financial institutions discourage mass abuse.

[tilly c]

Hello sorry if I pay someone as friends / family using Amex as a one off via papal or use Amex via PayPal for an item on ebay / boots etc this is classed as a cash transaction

[Colin MacKinnon]

Never, never, ever use Amex to make a “one off” friends and family payment through PayPal.

You really, really, really don’t want to risk upsetting either Amex or, indeed PayPal – who are a fab way of using Amex with companies who don’t take Amex!

Curve and Creation have taught the wisdom of this advice.

[Colin MacKinnon]

Using Amex via PayPal on EBay on the other hand is fine. But if you are buying off a “friend” it can be expensive – even with 80% off fees promotions.

[NorthernLass]

@Colin – not sure how Curve and Creation relate to Amex and PayPal? Plenty of people make one two family and friends payments per year with no adverse consequences, though obviously this could change at any time. I think the big issue with PayPal is that you lose the legal protections associated with credit cards if anything goes wrong.

[davefl]

tilly c wrote:

Hello sorry if I pay someone as friends / family using Amex as a one off via papal or use Amex via PayPal for an item on ebay / boots etc this is classed as a cash transaction

No it isnt. Using Amex via paypal is legitimate transaction for ebay purchases. I’ve spent thousands this way over the years. It’s absolutely not a cash advance.

F&F payments are a grey area.