For ages, we Indians got used to pay rent via cash or through NEFT/IMPS as a default payment mode. In fact most landlords still insist on cash over NEFT as they’re not comfortable with sharing their bank accounts.
Yes, that’s still happening in 2020. With Covid-19 pandemic outbreak & social distancing becoming new normal, its time for a change!
By routing rent payments through credit card we may enjoy lot of benefits like rewards & more and the rent payment apps too would swim in 100’s and 1000’s of crores in revenues – that’s a win-win for sure.
So this article helps you understand why you need to pay rent through credit card over other options and a detailed review of each of the service providers offering this solution. Here we go,
Table of Contents
Why Pay Rent with credit card?
Rewards
You get rewards at various levels while using credit card for rent payments, such as:
- Regular rewards
- Milestone rewards
- Targeted spend based rewards
For ex, spending Rs.30K a month for a year on Axis Vistara signature gets you regular Airmiles on spend and also 2 complimentary one way tickets valued at 7K each as its a part of the milestone benefits.
Credit Period
As credit cards allow you to carry balances without interest for about 45 days, it may help you with better your cash flow.
Annual Fee Waiver
Most credit cards these days comes with an annual fee waiver, which means you can renew your credit card for free if you meet the spend criteria.
For ex, Amex MRCC needs Rs.1.5L spend, SBI Prime needs Rs.3L spend for renewal fee waivers.
In a nutshell, Why would you want to spend your money while you can borrow someone else’s money for X number of days and get rewards and fee waivers on top of it? Makes sense isn’t it?
Best Rent Payment Apps
| Service/App | Charges | Docs Required? | Card Acceptance | |
| RedGirraffe | 0.39%+GST | Yes | All, except Amex | |
| NoBroker | 1% – 2% | No | All | |
| Housing | 1.3% | No | All, except Diners & Amex | |
| CRED | ~1.5% | No | All |
1. Redgirraffe
Redgirrafe is probably the first service provider that came out with a rent payment feature and it still remains the only dedicated solution out there.
Their USP is the ultra low service fee that stands at 0.39%+GST compared to 1% or above with others. While how they are able to give at this rate remains a mystery, they have deep integration with various banks which might make it possible, to an extent.
But the downside is poor user experience. Their sign up form just hurts my eyes by looking at, as I’m neither comfortable with long forms nor poor design.
- Check out the detailed review here: RedGirraffe Review
2. Nobroker
Nobroker’s rent payment feature is live since couple of months and is known for its low service fee which stands next to RedGirraffe.
However, Nobroker payments are marked as Utility, so that may cause problems for you in getting reward points with some issuers.
- Read full review for more: NoBroker Rent Payment feature – Review
3. Housing
Housing.com’s Rent Payment feature too is neat and simple but they have raised the fee multiple times and many have reported that the service was down for a couple of days.
Yet, at around 1.3% service fee, it’s still a good option, as long as it’s available.
- Read full review here: Pay Rent using Housing
4. CRED
While CRED has sleek interface, ability to pay to UPI Id & more, the downside is it’s relatively high service fee which goes as high as 1.5%.
But the good news however is that they don’t have any restriction on the type of card. Both Amex and diners accepted anyday and appears to be more reliable with less fluctuation in service fee.
- Read Full review here: CRED RentPay Review
5. PayZapp
Yes, this maybe surprising to see it as a major option but its worth mentioning, so you don’t miss it.
While PayZapp is not a standalone app/wallet to pay rent through credit card, it connects with other major services to make rent payments. For ex,
- PayZapp app has an option to pay rent through RedGirraffe and get additional cashback/points. I see one new offer to show up shortly.
- PayZapp wallet can be used as an option to pay rent on Nobroker to avail additional 5% cashback (as of now).
Basically PayZapp covers those 2 major services by allowing users to pay rent through them.
Should you pay rent through credit card?
It depends on which credit card you hold.
Ideally you should, as the benefits are well worth it. But not everyone has premium cards, now that’s the problem.
If you don’t have cards that gives you returns as equal as the service fee or more, there is no point in using the credit cards for paying rent.
Ideally most premium and super premium credit cards gives you enough reward rate to take care of the service fee.
If you don’t know how much % of return your credit card gives as rewards on each spend, do check out the reward rate % mentioned in the list of best credit cards in India, and choose the right credit card with a higher reward rate that fits you.
Final thoughts
While it’s good to see so many options, matter of fact is Redgirraffe remains the #1 option for most users, due to its super low fee.
But if you prefer convenience, wish to stay away from documentation and rather need a quick solution, other apps may help you.
Remember that you may need to check each app every month to see which one has the best offer, as the offers and the service fee keeps fluctuating.
And irrespective of any app you use to pay rent, you may still use CRED to pay credit card bills and get Cred coins on top of all these. While good redemptions on Cred coins are rare lately, something is better than nothing.
So which app are you using lately to pay rent through credit card? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.
Redgiraffe registered my case without any doc. Just fyi.
Yes, I’m hearing that from few lately. Is this a new update?
Happened with me as well. No rent agreement required.
Happening due to Covid. They are just seeking renewals through email with or without rent agreement. But still its a pain to use 😀
If rent is less than 20000 pm then no documentation required
Not new – I registered without any document last September. And re-registered again this Jan with revised rent. No document needed on RG.
Did your rent amount is less than 20000?
If yes, then no docs are required.
If the rent is below 20000 then rent agreement is not needed for red giraffe.
If rent is less than 20000 pm then no documentation required
Hi Pratik,
Can you please help me how you did that ? i.e without document how you paid rent in redgirraffe ?
Thanks
Ramesh
Quick question here. If card MDR fee is more than the fee being charged, how are they making money.
Valid question. I wonder the same! Particularly for Amex and Diners cards, even if there is a tie-up between them.
I’m certain there is no charity involved here. So the question is indeed as to how they make money. Sid, would you know?
Not 100% sure either, except seeing it as an user acquisition cost.
But my guess is that most likely CC companies may share this fee to/via payment gateways, as even if 10% of them carry forward balances, it would be good profit for banks.
My thought, and its my own, is that RG makes that entire 0.39% (or majority of it) as their own revenue, and the bank doesn’t directly earn anything, i.e. no MDR for biller RG (or only a fraction of 0.39%). So only 6 banks so far probably agreed to handle rent payments as thats a major regular recurring spend for plenty of families, which the banks hope, will sometimes be converted by users into EMIs or balance transfer etc, and thats where the banks make their money. Similar to credit card offers in online sale events, where they hope a user will convert his mobile or large appliance purchase into EMIs, where they can earn from, despite the instant discounts and cashbacks. But those are not frequent. From RG they get regular assured stream of big value transactions so more chances of rents converting to EMIs by users, or high interest charges due to balance carry forward, etc. That’s why I believe companies like Amex, whose model relies almost entirely on high MDR for revenues (due to their specific customer segment), cannot waive off MDR and work with RG’s model. Also that’s why corporate cards and corporate rents entail a higher fee by RG, as they usually don’t convert to EMIs or delay and pay high interests. Now RG allows even school fee payment as thats another regular source of spend for families, and for a lot of schools the spend value is substantial.
While Nobroker and Housing have been raising their fees, RG didn’t have to despite being in this business the longest, coz I believe they have negotiated MDR with those banks in exchange for steady big volume big value transactions.
Nobroker has rent payment feature since at least about an year. For initial few months they had zero service charge.
Quick question: If I use payzapp app to pay rent through red giraffe using my Diners black, will I get 3.3% points?
I’m asking as I dont wanna register my red giraffe id for auto payment through smartpay.
Yes you should. If I remember correctly, the only once when Payzapp became 10x partner, I did get those 10x also on rent (but gone is that golden goose 😀 )
BTW, if you register on HDFC Billpay instead of Smartpay, you can pay from there also directly. HDFC netbanking has 2 billpayment options. Billpay which can have both manual & autopay and Smartpay which is autopay only.
For this month, ditch redgiraffe, use no broker+Payzapp = 500 Cashback.
Thanks !!
@Abhi,
When 500 Cashback will be credited to the account?
I could not find Axis bank in the list of card issuing banks listed on Redgirraffe. How can I use my Axis Vistara signature card to pay rent on Redgirraffe ?
Payzapp. You don’t need to be HDFC card holder to use Payzapp (though being customer will help KYC).
I think Payzapp uses billdesk’s utility gateway, so you should see Redgiraff on many other biller’s site.
Another option is to use NoBroker instead of RG (expensive option though)
Cred is a great and hassle free option for Iconia Amex holders. In the statement the merchant category is shown as ‘Merchandise’ with ‘RAZORPAY RET’ as the merchant. So effectively you do get 0.5% benefit as statement credit and a 45 day interest free period!
If you need to pay rent by credit card, then probably you don’t deserve that house.
The primary intention here is rewards and not the credit line or credit period 🙂
I think its just the rewards and being able to hit the spend milestones. I have been paying rent using DCB (Payzapp + RedGirraffe) and was able to hit the yearly spend requirement to get the annual fees waived easily. The rewards points and the CRED benefits on paying the credit card bill were an added bonus. I try to put everything on the credit card even if it mean I have to pay 1-2% extra for big purchases. End of the day the rewards easily make up for it if you are using a premium card.
That’s grose and immature thinking. Not to mention idiotically judgmental.
Dear Siddharth and others,
Request your help for a couple of basic queries.
1) When registering for Red Girraffe, is selecting “Auto Pay” option compulsory?
2) Also, is giving credit card details compulsory at the time of Red Girraffe registration?
I ask this because does the rent payment happen automatically every month on a pre-set date for a pre-set amount from a pre-set credit card? Or
Do we need to make the rent payment every month manually from Red Girraffe dashboard on a date of our choice (can we change the rent payment date every month?) by specifying the rent amount (can we change the amount every month?) and the credit card (can we change the credit card details every month)?
Please help me with the above queries
1. Auto pay isn’t mandatory, but it’s convenient.
2. Did not have this issue as I’ve only one credit card with HDFC – DCP. Couldn’t link Amex as it’s not available with RG.
3. Yes, the rent payment happens automatically every month on a pre-set date for a pre-set amount from my card.
4. If you select Auto Pay, you don’t have to manually make the payment every month.
5. If you don’t opt for auto-pay, you could change the date of payment as per your choice.
6. Even for auto-pay, I believe you can change the date of payment by dropping an e-mail to RG.
7. You can change the rent amount every month, but you need to specifically state this over an email to RG.
8. On whether you can select the credit cards of your choice, well, it depends. I guess you may be able to. I didn’t have this issue as I opted for HDFC and I’ve only DCP card with HDFC bank. You can check this out with RG. They normally respond to your queries through chat / email.
Not able to see comments
I tried to Pay rent of 10,000 Rs on NoBroker through payzapp
But They hold my money due to observe suspicious activity ( using 1st time for rent pay) and told me to provide rent agreement other wise they charge me 2% penalty & and refund my money into credit card
9800 Refund paid 10100
Loss of 300Rs
Thats new… probably since lots of user have started using it (I was also think of a 10K transfer to get 500 CB) so they have started looking out for suspicious transfers which would otherwise not be returning customers once Payzapp CB is gone.
And was it Payzapp holding/returning or NoBroker ? They have charged near to 3% not 2%.
Did you mention the area which probably can’t have a rental as low as 10k ? Eg Kormangala, Whitefield etc in Blr ?
This happens if you are trying to transfer the money to your own account or to someone with the same surname.
No man
Different surname
It is totally unjust to deduct and return the payment in case there is no rent agreement. They should have mentioned it beforehand. If they charge 2% extra then they have to process the request instead of refunding the transaction. People hardly go for rent agreement, if the rent is below 10K and live in non metro cities.
The issue with RedGirraffee is friction. You need rent agreement (even for rent below 20k they are asking for “proof of ownership”-whatever it means), changing date/amount (can be done but still you need to email them beforehand everytime), can’t use Amex and can’t change card which we may use based on the offers available at that time. Charges are the lowest at 0.46% which is the only advantage.
Does NoBroker transactions give regular points for Amex?
Can I use this service to transfer money from my credit card to my account and earn reward points?
Hi Siddharth,
Do we get the reward points for paying rent via hdfc instapay and Payzapp via HDFC DCB? I pay rent via DCB to meet the annual spend criteria. Don’t know if they are giving point for the transactions.
I tried to transfer money in my friend account and now they are asking for rent agreement and in case that is not provided they will refund the money after deducting 2%. If anybody can suggest anything. Thanks
Have your paperwork in order and don’t misuse RentPay websites. This was bound to happen.
Even with higher charges, I still think housing.com is better in case you don’t have paperwork and need to pay rent.
If your friend is not your landlord, then it seems not much can be done..
Banks/companies do monitor forums for any loopholes that may be exploited/trying to exploit by users
Payzapp has a daily limit for 10k amount only , which can be loaded in wallet. How to use it for rent more than 25k, I don’t want to make multiple transaction s
The daily limit is for using PayZapp as a wallet. Use Payzapp as a payment gateway by adding your linked card and making the payment through it.
Better not to load the wallet to pay, instead pay entire amount using the linked card. You can link your credit card (any bank except Amex) to your payzapp acc.
Other apps:
Heard Paymatrix earlier allowed Amazon Pay balance for rent payment, which is great if you managed to top up using HDFC 10X. It currently allows most cards at 2% + taxes.
Mobikwik allows rent payment but charges 3-4%.
Is Amazon pay still available to pay on Paymatrix? What is the charges?
They ve taken it off, never know when it ‘ll be reintroduced. They have different charges for old users vs new users, which ranges 2-3% plus Gst in case of wallets.
Mobikwik reduced fee to 1.5%+gst .
But Amex not accepted.
If I pay through nobroker via DCB, will I get reward points even if the transaction get charged as Utilities?
You will get reward points, but currently they are not accepting diners card. It displays a msg- temporary problem
Any recommendation for a card to maximize the reward of paying rent?
Any recommendation for a card to maximize the reward of paying rent?
Is DCB the best card to pay rent (3.33% reward point) or is there any better card that offers more reward?
Annual rent = 4.2 lac
2 options:
1. DCB or Infinia or StanC Ultimate using Redgirraffe paid via Payzapp for the 3.3% reward rate @ 0.46% charges and 200 monthly payzapp cashback. Prefer DCB since it also brings you closer to the monthly and annual milestones.
2. Amex Platinum Travel for the ~7% reward rate if you spend 4 lac a year, paid via Cred @ 1.5% charges. Beyond 4lac switch to option1 or any better card.
Be on the lookout for apps which occasionally allow using Amazon Pay balance, or other cashback offers.
Thanks Abhi
Will I get reward points for Amex card for paying rent on Cred?
Cred stopped amex payments
Payzapp has now become superfast in posting cashbacks. Did a postpaid bill payment on payzapp by using coupon/offer code “RECHARGE” for amount Rs. 1068 /- by DCB card. Instantly within 10 minutes received cashback of Rs. 100 /-. Didn’t expect it to be damn fast. Payzapp has rolled out a facility termed as “INSTANT CASHBACK”. See the terms & conditions of applying offer code “RECHARGE” are as follows —–“Instant Cashback offer on “Recharge” category is applicable only on weekdays i.e. (Monday to Friday) on transaction done from 9:00AM to 9:00PM. Transaction done on Weekend i.e. (Saturday & Sunday) then CashBack will be posted on 30 working days from the date of transaction. Offer is applicable only on payment made via PayZapp upon successful apply of promo code i.e. “RECHARGE”.—–
This implies that —-To receive an Immediate / Instant cashback after using code “RECHARGE” —–do the transaction on weekdays ie. Monday to Friday between 9 am to 9 pm.
This weekday instant credit was always mentioned in the T&C. Just that they have started honoring it now.
No Broker too stopped accepting Amex cards, Even through Paytm also
It appears, as of now PayMatrix is the only option left now for rent payment using Amex cards
Amex Utility Bill pay portal is showing Redgiraffe as a biller under National category. Only question will I get the base points for rent payment through this mode or only milestone benefit? Anybody using it? Thanks.
It just shows. It doesn’t work. I tried a few times, keep getting error.
Payzapp now features Nobroker also as a biller. There was only RedGirraffe until now, but now you can use Nobroker Bill Account ID also on payzapp to pay rent.
Anyone using Paymatrix to pay rent through American Express credit card?
How is the experience?
Pretty well so far if you don’t mind higher charges (which are worth for Amex rewards). Except for once when after making my payment, PayMatrix asked for my KYC documents after 2 days and they had put the payment on hold. But as soon as I provided the docs, they processed the payment next day. Two bus days is their usual turn around time.
Anyone knows why cred as well as nobroker stopped accepting amex cards for rent?
Payzapp cashback on redgirraffe rent payments reduced to 150pm since Sep.
I have tried Cred and Nobroker for rentpay. Have been using nobroker for the past few months as the Cred service charge is higher. In principle, if you use the HDFC Millennia card on nobroker through Payzapp, you can get 10 percent benefit up to 1250 as there is a Payzapp cashback running on nobroker rentpay for the last 6 months at least, and Millennia on Payzapp spends should give you 5 percent up to 750. But I have never got the card reward points on my rent pay transactions despite multiple notifications from Payzapp and No Broker. So I stopped using the Millennia card and instead using the Amazon Pay ICICI card that is prompt with the 1 percent rewards. So if you have a decently rewarding card option, paying through Payzapp on No Broker can be the best deal. Would be great to know if anyone has tried the Flipkart Axis card or SBI Simply Click on No Broker through Payzapp and got the card rewards as well.
Update: RG says They won’t accept SBI and Amex as well
Anyone tried using Millennia DEBIT card on nobroker via payzapp? Should be giving 5% cashback as per ongoing nobroker-payzapp offer, plus 2.5% on using millennia Debit as HDFC claims to offer 2.5% on online transactions. Moreover HDFC claims to offer 5% in case of “shopping” via payzapp and smartbuy on Millennia Debit. Have got 5% cashback to payzapp wallet after 2 months wait, but never used millennia Debit so far. If this works, its a better option than so many credit cards that give only upto 2% RP.
HDFC’s claims on Millennia seems very, very suspect. I don’t have experience of debit cards, but credit cards have been awful. They are not just crediting points anything according to terms and conditions. Customercare is mostly non-responsive or vague. I tried Millennia on nobroker through Payzapp with Payzapp being the gateway, but not once I got the reward points. Not at 5 percent according to Payzapp transactions reward points, not 2.5 percent according to online transactions rewards, or not even 1 percent according to wallet reload rewards though I didn’t really reload the wallet/prepaid card…
Can anyone who uses Infinia card on PayZapp for Redgiraffe rent payment confirm is rewards are received for the transaction
Paytm introduced rent payments as well at 2% I guess
I think they are subsidizing the cost through their corporate customers and taking losses in retail. Apparently, Red Giraffe has a large corporate rent book via their ERP. I spoke to one of their partner banks and got to know that RG operates over USD 1.3 Billion [Rs 9500 Crores] of corporate rents, which is their main source of income. In the retail space, as I understand they might be simply subsidizing the individual customer. That makes sense.
Nobroker is now asking for Rental agreement. Just wanted to update this nice article.
As on date Red Giraffe is THE BEST for Rent and School fee payments
Using RG ids on PayZapp one can either use a hdfc card or amazon pay depending on points- both work great
Cred had some offer but still doesn’t beat RG by a margin
@Amit Could you explain how you used Amazon Pay with PayZapp? Or is there another way of using Amazon Pay for rent payments?
Anyone tried magicbricks for rent pay yet? Pls share experiences if any.
Been using it. Works extremely well.
Pros:
– It charges flat 1% charge unlike housing which increases to 1.3% for larger amounts.
– You can input GST details and save 18% GST by billing in your company’s name, thus reducing effective charge to 0.82%.
Cons:
– It has restricted the use of a single credit card to Rs 99,000 per month (wont work on different account too)
– Can make only 3 rent payments a month (can use multiple accounts to overcome this)
Are they taking Amex?
No.
Visa or MC directly. Diners when using the option of Payzapp.
Hello friends,
Your suggestions/advises wuld be helpful. Thank you in advance.
My landlord is asking me for transferring the rent (20k) into 2 accounts. 10k in his account and 10k in his wife account. Will i be still eligible for the cashback if i register myself with RG and do the transaction through payzapp (cheapest of other options) ?
Have anyone explored option of standing instructions with net banking if paying rent is the only motive. HDFC Bank charges 25/- per transaction which is lesser than RG charges.
Now rent payment option is available on paytm as well with 1.5% charges and mobikwik with 4.5(approx)% .
Of late, I m not get RPs on my DCB for paying rent through redgirraffe via payzapp.
Even DCB bonus points credit is bit inconsistent, they give 9X for some of the transactions promptly at beginning of next month and when you enquire why they haven’t given fully, they ask you to wait 90 days as per T&C. Tracking the differential becomes a huge pain.
It seems like all Rent Pay providers have stopped accepting Amex, is that truly the case or have I missed someone? Have tried RedGiradde, NoBroker, Paymatrix, Cred.. anybody know of any others still accepting or any workarounds?
Thanks
Paytm is still accepting AmEx but it is categorised as utility so you don’t get points.
Paid on paytm in May using mobikwik virtual Amex, was able to burn 2% supercash against paytm’s 1% fee. Also, had loaded the entire sum on Mobikwik thru Amex so no compromise on RPs also. Unfortunately Amex no more accepted on paytm.
Paytm accepted Amex.
Mobikwik accepts Amex, and you get RP also, but the fee is huge.
Does We earn 3.75% when we pay rent on Redgiraffe using BOB Eterna Credit Card?
Hi Ashwani,
Did u try using BoB Eterna for rent pay on RG ? What was the reward rate you got?
Thanks
Looks like Paytm has also stopped accepting Amex for rent payment. Any other alternatives ?
Has anyone tried using Ola Wallet by loading money from Amex and using that for NoBroker Rent payment ?
Now everyone’s jumping the rentpay-with-creditcard bandwagon.. freecharge is doing so at 1% fee, guess Amex is not entertained.
Please can some one confirm if Indusind Cards are giving regular reward rate for rent payment transactions?
Seems like CRED is not accepting AMEX cards for rent payments anymore.
Pls revisit this and any option where rent can be paid through amex
Try phonepe. 1.3% charges incl gst, and allows Amex for now.
Update.. Amex not accepted on phonepe.
Amex unfortunately doesn’t allow any rent payment services to use their network, for now.
Amex is not taking new registrations for Amex Pay as well. They have themselves pulled out from other payments platforms as well (like Samsung Pay). I don’t know why.
I started using RedGiraffe a couple of months back. My rent amount is on the higher side and it seemed like a great use of the Infinia rewards. I realised I wasn’t maxing out my 15000 monthly quota so this seemed like a good add-on towards the earning.
Initial setup was smooth once I had the rent documentation in place. I then added this as a biller in my HDFC Billpay and gave autopayment. Works smoothly as any billpay can. I needed to move the payment date so that my card debit happened on a particular date and they managed the change over a whatsapp conversation.
They’ve told they can also take care of the TDS on rent that is due in March, I’ll see how that works.
They charge me little under 600 per txn for this. But this almost guarantees that I meet the requirement to waive off my 10,000 renewal fee. And the 3000+ monthly rewards is a cherry on the cake. This does limit my earning capacity when the SmartBuy 10X type offer comes but I think that will be only 2-3 times at best in a year.
Overall a great proposition
Rewards earned on rent payment are not part of 15000 capping and there is no capping on base reward points.
Hey Apoorva!
I have also been using RedGiraffe on and off over the last three years and they are awesome. However, last month when I paid the rent with my Infinia (before that, I had a Regalia) on the PayZapp platform, my statement doesn’t show any points credited against the rent payment.
Would you know what am I missing here?
Any way to pay rent with Amex?
Redgiraffe has stopped Axis cards as well
You can add Axis card on PayZapp and pay via PayZapp on Redgiraffe.
Redgiraffe support said Payzapp has disabled Axis Bank cards for rent pay.
Today (16th Nov), I just paid 40k rent using Axis Vistara Signature card on PayZapp Red Giraffe biller.
Which is the card with maximum rewards for rent payment? Most cards have now excluded rent/property management from the accelerated rewards or even normal cash backs.
Axis Ace, previously 2% cashback, not anymore (similar for most Axis cards)
IDFC Select, previously 10x rewards, not anymore.
Those using Magicbricks, I have been trying to set up rent pay through it as NoBroker offers have gone down and they’ve added GST too. However, I am just not able to upload my Rent Agreement through the app. Clicking the button does nothing on the app. Tried through the Web Interface, unable to get the document uploaded, and the one time I managed to go pass that step, clicking on Make Paiment got me stuck. MB doesn’t have processing charges on HDFC, City, Kotak and IDFC First cards, provided you upload the rent agreement. However, that part doesn’t work on the MB app or website. Any tips?
Just an update on this, I tried through the mobile browser on my Android phone, and it worked! Didn’t work on either Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge on Windows, and didn’t work on the Android app, but it did work on the phone through Chrome. Spoke to MB customercare, and they also suggested trying through the website rather than the app…
Diners Black Credit Card also stops reward points on all rent transactions from 1st Jan 2023. A big downer.
Which credit cards would be the best to pay rent from, going forward?
Starting January 2023, there are no reward points for rent payments using HDFC Bank Credit Card. This is such a terrible thing. Never expected HDFC to take such a drastic step. Requesting to create a separate thread for this to discuss the options for using other credit card for rent payments.
Rent and education fees payment via credit card – The party seems to be over with banks like HDFC and Axis stopping rewards on such categories and instead leving 1% addition fees over and beyond the fees charged by the service provider. Wonder if the addition 1%-2% fees overall is valuable just for few days of credit and minor impact on Cibil score. Excerpt from revised T&C of HDFC cards –
Revision in the Fee structure w.e.f 1st January 2023:
1. For rent payments made through third-party merchants, a fee of 1% of the total transaction amount will be levied from the second rental transaction of the calendar month.
Contd… Rent payments and government transactions will NOT earn Reward Points.
What’s the best portal for rent payment through Axis Bank card MAGNUS
they still have not come with restrictions
please update this article as many changes have come nowadays.
I’m hardly using rent payment apps, so I lack the experience.
P.S. If anyone has the updated info, please do let me know in the comments or via contact form. Will make sure you get a small gift for the time spent in updating this content. 🙂
Hi all,
CRED is the best app to pay the rent payment as far as my knowledge is concerned. Less processing fee.
Have mainly been using No Broker, they’ve started charging additional GST on service charges. Pushing the rate to 1.18 percent. Magic Bridge is charging nearly 1.5 percent now, though for, HDFC, IDFC First, Kotak and City customers, there is an up to 250 off on service charges. Paytm in effect, is charging almost 2 percent now.
Most card issuers including SBI, ICICI, RBL and HDFC have now added their own additional service charge on rent pay transactions. Many of them including SBI, HDFC, Axis (seemingly not for all cards) ICICI, RBL, have stopped giving reward points on rent pay transaction. IDFC First and IndusInd have restrictions and cappings.
Unless you have a SCB Ultimate, or perhaps an Axis Magnus with a high monthly spend, you wouldn’t have any monetary benefit by paying rent through credit card any more. Red Girraffe seems to be the only viable option, perhaps with an IndusInd Legend or IDFC First (if they rightly mark the transaction) now. Have registered with them, planning to try with Indus Ind Legend. Will share my experience afterwards.
So I tried RG througgh Payzapp this month. The IndusInd Legend didn’t work, faced authenticattion issues… Had to eventually try with IDFC First. But they seem to have marked the transaction as insurance, that’s what the SMS from the bank seemed to indicate. Can something be done if they mark the transaction as insurance rather than rent? Will probably try IndusInd directly next month. Payzapp had a 75 cashback offer, but since the IndusInd card isn’t working, it still is a loss.
In recent months, paytm has been very good for rent payments. The fee has ranged between 1.8 to 2.5%. But cashback brings that cost down to about 1% (still higher than redgirraffe), and then paytm points earned for card repayments further brings down the effective cost to about 0.5%. But advantage is no registration or documentation or pan number asked if any individual transaction is under 50K and it allows you to do multiple transactions to multiple “landlords” (from Dec it’s limited to 3 transactions per month).
But what’s important to note is that the following banks have either introduced their own fee or downgraded reward point structure on rent payments or both:
ICICI, Idfc, SBI, HDFC, Axis (non super premium), BoB, RBL and now HSBC. Also Amex can’t be used on most platforms (except mobikwik). So that leaves one with hardly any viable options going forward.
Even on Mobikwik, the maximum rent that can be paid using Amex card is Rs.20,000.
So IndusInd Bank also not a viable option for rent payment from April this year, as they have also introduced a 1 % processing fee on rent pay. Think the era of rent pay through credit cards, is well and truly over now…
Now SCB also joins in, imposing a 1 percent processing charge on rent transactions from first April. So almost 3 years after Covid brought in the possibility, think that’s the end of the road for rent pay through credit card… Red Girraffe remains one possible option with minimal losses, in a liquidity crisis situation.
What is the MCC for red giraffe? Are there any websites that show different MCC other than 6513 to get points credited?