The legality and gotchas of paying rent and other stuff via CC's

[navam]

So, I have about 60k (50k rent + 10k maintenance ) of monthly expenses that are direct to bank transfer, now I have in general kept it simple and never tried to use credit card for these to get points or milestones etc. and quite recently someone called me an idiot for not doing so.... 😅

Now based on what I understand there are certain apps (Bharat pay or even cred now) that allow you to pay rent (not sure about the maintenance part) via CC's, so my questions are -
1. It is legal right? Or some loophole which might get plugged or worse get fined for later in life?
2. I'm assuming not all banks allow reward points for these transaction (got infinia, magnus, MRCC)
3. Is it worth the effort ?

Thanks , as always looking forward to learning from you all

 

[Anil_Singh]

1) Yes. Legal and should be declared in your ITR.
2) Yes. Most of them now charge extra 1% for rent payments without any rewards and milestone benefits.
3) Yes. If you use platforms that categorize rent payments under utilities/bill-payment categories. Thus you will get benefits according to credit cards used.

 

[navam]

2) Yes. Most of them now charge extra 1% for rent payments without any rewards and milestone benefits.

Toh doesn't this whole activity become useless for almost everyone except those I guess who are unable to pay rent that month and need credit for that.. which sounds like a thing that should not happen.

 

[Anil_Singh]

Toh doesn't this whole activity become useless for almost everyone except those I guess who are unable to pay rent that month and need credit for that.. which sounds like a thing that should not happen.

Yes. This process got misused so much that banks had to introduce charges on rent payments.

 

[Pankhuri]

1) Yes. Legal and should be declared in your ITR.
2) Yes. Most of them now charge extra 1% for rent payments without any rewards and milestone benefits.
3) Yes. If you use platforms that categorize rent payments under utilities/bill-payment categories. Thus you will get benefits according to credit cards used.

IIRC HDFC used to have a policy that they allow 1 rent payment per month without surcharge. Other bank doing something similar was AU.

 

[Anil_Singh]

IIRC HDFC used to have a policy that they allow 1 rent payment per month without surcharge. Other bank doing something similar was AU.

Yes. HDFC allows one free rent payment per month. No idea about reward points and milestone benefits.

 

[navam]

So to wrap it up, no point in bothering with paying using CC, direct bank transfer is just fine?

 

[Anil_Singh]

So to wrap it up, no point in bothering with paying using CC, direct bank transfer is just fine?

y e s