How to Make Your Car Loan Payment with a Credit Card and Earn up to 5x Points on Each Dollar

Years ago, I asked this very common and simple question. Can you pay your car loan payments with a credit?

The easy answer is to say no. You do, however, have a couple costly options like a cash advance where you pay a higher interest that is due immediately. But the whole point of this is to…collect points! (Excuse the pun)

I figured out an interesting workaround to the get points on your auto loan. It doesn’t even have to be for a loan. It can be for anything.

Disclaimer: This is not a free way to earn points, but it is a cheap way. This is very risky as you can potentially get your credit card accounts shut down and your points frozen. This is not easy but if you can pull it off, it is an amazing way to rack up a ton of points regularly.

Step 1:

Now the best way to begin is to decide which card you are going to use. I use the Chase Ink Business Plus card. It earns 5x at office supply stores. Capped at $50k in spend each year.

Unfortunately, this card is no longer available to apply for.

But, you can apply for the Chase Ink Cash card. It also earns 5x at office supply stores. The difference is that it is capped at $25k each year and you cannot transfer these points to partners. But you can transfer them to your other premium cards like the Sapphire Reserve then make a partner transfer or even redeem with Chase for 50% bonus.

Of course, you can just use any credit card of your choice for the next steps.

Step 2:

Purchase Visa gift cards that give you a pin. If you have an INK card, buying a $300 Visa Gift Card is perfect. You do have to pay $9 on top but the purchase results in 1,545 Ultimate Reward Points.

The next step is the most difficult.

Step 3:

Buy a money order for the value of the gift card…with said gift card. Sounds easy but believe me…it ain't.

This step is also difficult because it involves you to get up and go to your nearest grocery store. You need to find one that will let you buy a money order with a debit card (aka your Visa Gift Card).

You may find that a lot of these locations only take cash. You would think it is ridiculous because that policy doesn’t stop money laundering. It stops people from turning visa gift cards into cash.

Hopefully, you will find a local store that will take your DEBIT card as payment for a money order.

Tip: Please do not mention you have a Visa Gift Card. You will get rejected faster than a freshman asking a senior to prom. You technically have a debit card. So that is the only thing you should call it. Draw over the card if you have to so it is not obviously saying “Gift Card”

The other issue that you will run into is that a Money Order costs money. So you can’t buy a $300 money with only a $300 gift card because your cost is actually $300.95 for your money order. There are 2 ways you can proceed:

1.   Buy a money order for the amount on your gift card minus $1. This is the shadiest way to make it work. A lot of people do this. It is rather obvious what you are trying to do. But if the cashier does not care, then neither should you.

2.   This one is less shady but sillier. Buy a money order for the full amount of your gift card but preface the transaction as you want to pay the fee in change. Actually, bust out the change that covers the fee. Yes, this is silly.

When you swipe your card, your pin number is most likely the last 4 digits of the Visa Gift Card unless otherwise noted with your order, you changed it over the phone or  you changed it online. 

Final Step:

Deposit your money order

You can do this a couple ways. You can deposit this directly into your bank account then make a transfer to your auto loan account. Or you can simply deposit the money order directly into your car payment account. It is as good as cash. So you pretty much do whatever you want with it.

All in all, you did a lot of work for some points.

Continuing with the INK and $300 Visa example. You managed to get 1,545 for around $10. That does not sound like a lot but that equates to 18,540 in a year which is worth $278 at minimum redeeming via Ultimate Rewards through Chase Sapphire Reserve’s portal. Your investment was $120. It does not sound like a lot but UR points can be worth 2 to 8 cents per point when transferring wisely.

That could make your $120 investment worth up to $1,483!!