Pay 1.79% fee on rent using your credit card with ipaymy

EXPIRED This article relates to an offer or promotion which has now expired.

Competition in the card payments sector is really hotting up this year. Until quite recently most of our readers were restricted to CardUp for these transactions, but there’s now a relatively new company RentHero allowing you to pay your rent with your credit card at a competitive rate, and just last week ipaymy returned to the personal accounts sphere.

That newest option included a nice income tax payment discount we wrote about on Monday, and ipaymy have now launched an attractive deal to pay rent to your private landlord for up to six months at a discounted fee of just 1.79%.

With some credit cards on the market awarding 1.6 cents per S$1 spent, this reduces the cost per mile as low as 1.1 cents each.

The offer

ipaymy’s usual fee for rental payments using your Singapore issued Visa or Mastercard is 2.25%.

Under this offer users who apply promo code GIVEME179 towards a rent payment with a charge date in May 2019 (i.e. latest 31st May) will pay a discounted fee of 1.99% for the transaction.

Provided you then also make a second rental payment next month (i.e. in June 2019), you will unlock the bonus rate of 1.79% on your rental payments for the rest of the year.

That gives you six months (July to December inclusive) to take advantage of this very low fee, really helping you minimise the ‘cost per mile’ for these transactions.

Note that users who don’t make a second rent payment in June will then revert to the standard 2.25% fee for rental payments for the rest of 2019, so it’s really crucial to complete the first two steps here to be eligible for the offer.

Comparison

Our readers will probably recall our ongoing offer with RentHero for a 1.90% fee on your rental payments using selected credit cards, which until now has been the most generous offer around for some time.

That still applies until February 2020 and works for one off or recurring payments. Our reminder article posted on Monday summarises how it works.

CardUp is your other choice for paying rent, albeit with a higher fee of 2.60%, with no special offer codes currently available.

For example if you have a rental payment of S$5,000 per month to make between now and the end of 2019, here is how the ipaymy offer (code GIVEME179) compares to RentHero (using offer code MAINLYMILES) and CardUp (at regular rates).

We have assumed payment using the BOC Elite Miles card, which earns 1.5 miles for every S$1 spent locally.

Fee for S$5,000 monthly rental payment
Month
May ’19	S$99.50 (1.99%)	S$95.00 (1.90%)	S$130.00 (2.60%)
Jun ’19	S$99.50 (1.99%)	S$95.00 (1.90%)	S$130.00 (2.60%)
Jun ’19	S$89.50 (1.79%)	S$95.00 (1.90%)	S$130.00 (2.60%)
Aug ’19	S$89.50 (1.79%)	S$95.00 (1.90%)	S$130.00 (2.60%)
Sep ’19	S$89.50 (1.79%)	S$95.00 (1.90%)	S$130.00 (2.60%)
Oct ’19	S$89.50 (1.79%)	S$95.00 (1.90%)	S$130.00 (2.60%)
Nov ’19	S$89.50 (1.79%)	S$95.00 (1.90%)	S$130.00 (2.60%)
Dec ’19	S$89.50 (1.79%)	S$95.00 (1.90%)	S$130.00 (2.60%)
Total Fee	S$736.00	S$760.00	S$1,040.00
Miles accrued	61,104	61,140	61,560
Cost per mile	1.20¢	1.24¢	1.69¢

Essentially you’ve earned enough miles there in eight months for a return Singapore Airlines Business Class flight to Hong Kong (61,000 miles), or a one-way Business Class flight to Sydney or Auckland (62,000 miles) for as little as S$736.

Remember this assumes you are paying rent using your Singapore issued Visa or Mastercard (and for RentHero your card must also be on the list).

For American Express payments you are restricted to using CardUp at a fee of 2.6% or ipaymy at a fee of 3.3%.

Citi PayAll

The alternative for Citi credit card customers is Citi PayAll, however at a fixed 2% fee for most users it only trumps the CardUp option, with ipaymy and RentHero coming in cheaper.

Some Citi PayAll customers are targeted for a 1.5% fee, which usually then makes that method the best way to pay rent to your landlord.

Bear in mind though even at this low fee the cost per mile can work out higher, for example using the Citi PremierMiles Visa (1.2mpd) at a 1.5% fee through PayAll is actually costing you more per mile (1.25 cents) than the ipaymy and RentHero methods using the BOC Elite Miles card shown above.

Which method is cheaper therefore depends on the other credit cards you hold and the PayAll fee you have been targeted for, so do the maths before deciding which option to go for.

Summary

Another great value option for rental payments, but you’ll have to act relatively fast on this one starting this month and again in June to qualify for those next six months at 1.79%.

Visit ipaymy (if you don’t have a personal account there yet it’s free to sign up), then use promo code GIVEME179 on your May rental payment to be eligible.