How to use credit card instead of bank transfer?

RonniePeppermint

I recently got my first credit card for make the payments for my wedding so that I can benefit from credit card protections and also build up air miles for our honeymoon. However, I'm hitting a hitch at the first step as most of our vendors (photographer, videographer, hair stylist) only offer payment by bank transfer. 

I didn't realise you couldn't make bank transfers using a credit card, but that seems to be the case? I looked at using Paypal to pay by credit card, but it seems there is a 2.9% fee for this now. The suppliers we are looking at are mostly small sole traders, without any card payment facilities either in person or online.

Does anyone have advice about how I could get around this? Is it even possible? 

Thank you! 

MorningcoffeeIV

No, not if they don't accept cards.

A money transfer lets you get cash off a card, but for a few 

Marchitiello

If the supplier does not accept the Card in the first place, any third party payment service would invalidate the “protection” in the first place.

Paypal let you send small amounts to family and friend for free but any payments towards goods or service will
indeed incur a fee, but in any case you would loose the s75 protection.

UK sites that promote ways of earning miles often mention Billhop as a payment service, but it also carries a fee and the conclusion is that it would only really be worth to potentially achieve a bonus or similar (e.g. spend £4K in a short time in order to meet a sign up bonus with Amex).

lr1277

This might be stating the obvious but with billhop I don't think you get S75 protection as it is a 3rd party processor.

Marchitiello

lr1277 said:

This might be stating the obvious but with billhop I don't think you get S75 protection as it is a 3rd party processor.

I thought it was implied in my first statement, but you are indeed correct.

I wonder what the OP first credit card is. I know it could have been an intriguing idea to earn miles off the wedding expenditure, the OP may have overestimated how far the miles earned could actually take them.. I have said this before in another similar thread but with the most recent miles valuation, I think you would need to earn at least 150,000-200,000 miles per year to be able to make the most of the CC miles earned (including the easily convertible Amex MR points), so even spending 20-30k on a wedding will not actually take you very far. 

lr1277

And in some rewards programmes the miles/points expire after a certain length of time (e.g. 1/2/3 years). So you can't keep adding slowly to your rewards in the expectation of eventually having enought miles/points to make the redemption you want.

I suspect  Amex Membership Rewards points don't expire but that needs to be confirmed.

Marchitiello

lr1277 said:

And in some rewards programmes the miles/points expire after a certain length of time (e.g. 1/2/3 years). So you can't keep adding slowly to your rewards in the expectation of eventually having enought miles/points to make the redemption you want.

I suspect  Amex Membership Rewards points don't expire but that needs to be confirmed.

Amex MR do not expire as long as you hold an MR card. Some programmes (E.g. Avios) may need a small transaction every so often to keep it alive.

I am really into Premium travel and make the most of my Travel Rewards collection and benefits but not Everyone will be on a similar condition and someone that admit to get his very first credit card in order to collect miles may need a bit more research before he get invested completely into the game. 

There are many avenues for double earning miles (for example using a BA Amex card to shop where you also earn point in said shop in addition to your Amex earning, like at Sainsbury and then convert Nectar to Avios, or spending at BP (also convertible to Avios), using the Avios shopping portal etc

[Deleted User]

OP if you want S75, see if any supplier can take a deposit by CC, assuming the prices reach the min/max spending requirements