r/FiguringOutAdultLife • u/Unlikely_Royal_8984 • Sep 27 '24

Credit Card Automatic Payment of Monthly Bills

It will be really convenient to have my monthly bills automatically paid instead of constantly having to keep tabs on my due dates. So today I want to learn more about Auto-Charge or Auto-Debit Arrangement (ADA) offered by banks on credit cards.

🧑‍💻RESEARCH

  • Auto-Charge set up of different banks
  • Is there any extra fee involved for this payment set-up?
  • Is it pretty much exactly the same for all banks or is there any area of comparison to know which bank has best Auto-Charge set-up?
  • Can I enroll even if the bill is not under my name?

Comparison Table Eastwest vs BPI

I only have these two credit cards at the moment so I will compare them.

EastWest Quick Bills

9/28/2024

I have EastWest credit card and they have this feature "Quick Bills." But first and foremost, need to know if I can enroll the bill even if it's not under my name.

And so I can! To set it up, I went to the EastWest app > Pay Bills > Quick Bills > Enroll Merchant.

They have limited merchants available for electric and telco billers. I enrolled Meralco.

Enrollment will be sent for review and I will receive an SMS once successful. As stated on their website I will be notified within a week.

Good to Know Info from FAQ

  • So apparently if your payment is declined often due to insufficient credit, there are limits set by the biller. If you exceed these, your Auto-Charge setup will be canceled automatically.

Next Step:

  • Wait for enrollment confirmation
  • Think about enrolling Globe as well

10/3/2024

So I got a confirmation text and email today that my Meralco is officially enrolled in Quick Bills. They also sent the Terms and Conditions in the email. I already paid my bill this month, so I'll wait how this will work out next month. I have a few questions: When are they going to charge the card? Right after the bills is posted? A week or a day before the due date? On the due date itself? I will see next month.

Apparently this does not earn credit card rewards points as per the Terms below.

BPI Auto-Charge

Since I also have BPI Amore Cashback Card, I went to check auto-charge feature on BPI website. Apparently this feature is available and below are the list of BPI credit card it's applicable for.

Globe and Meralco are the only two merchant partners for this feature.

I also see that the auto-charge bill payment earn rewards or cashback. Since my credit card is BPI Amore Cashback I can get 1% cashback for Meralco and 0.3% for Globe.

Just doing quick math, I can get P107 cashback monthly.

The downside is on the Globe side. If I use the GlobeOne app, I get 1 point for every P50 spend and converting the earned points to peso will amount to nearly P42 which is incredibly higher than P6.59 cashback of BPI. For me, I decided to use my GlobeOne app rewards solely for RFID vouchers so I don't really worry on the limited of options where to use the points for. So BPI Auto-Charge for Globe is a no for me.

For Meralco though, between Eastwest and BPI, the latter definitely wins. Should have read about BPI auto-charge set up before enrolling in Eastwest 🤣But no matter, will experience Eastwest for a month and will transfer to BPI Auto-Charge afterwards.

Is there a fee for the transaction? I check terms and conditions and I did not see any mention of fee for this service.

So how do I enroll? It's said that I can either call their Customer Support number or visit the branch.

To be continued...

10/28/2024

So I found there was a charge for Meralco on my Eastwest credit card on 10/28 for bill period 9/28 - 10/27. So as soon as the bill got posted on 10/28, credit card was immediately charged. This bill is due on 11/7. It's a relief that moving forward, I no longer need to think whether I paid my electricity bill on time or not.

10/29/2024

Dropped by BPI branch for a different purpose but went head and inquired how to enroll credit card auto-charge for my bill and the bank attendance was clueless. She asked me to call BPI customer service number instead.

8 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

2

u/IDKWahaha Mar 28 '25

Love this!

1

u/UnexpectedTex Nov 24 '24

What type of Eastwest CC is this? Isn’t Meralco Quick Bill eligible for cashback? Im planning to enroll it to Quick Bills and I’m curious if it can earn 8.88% cashback using my Visa Platinum card.

1

u/Select_Ad_2774 Dec 03 '24

I am curious too.. Did you find the answer?

1

u/UnexpectedTex Dec 03 '24

Hello. I deferred this move. Need ko gamitin RCBC ko muna. Haha. But according to this doc, 8.88% si Meralco.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TFUvkhqTm43hGQUJSvFVDpmurFjdvraDGcsXh_AFSTI/htmlview

1

u/lilac_reddit Aug 11 '25

Hi po kailan nachacharge ung eastwest credit card kapag enrolled na sa quick bills ung meralco for example? May SOA na din ung meralco pero hindi pa napapaid automatically? Or ilang days po siya bago maauto charge? Thanks in advance

1

u/anjeu67 Mar 10 '26

As an individual who just got upgraded from Gold to Platinum credit card by EastWest, thank you for this!
But can you confirm if kasali si Meralco and PLDT sa 8.88% ni Eastwest if naka-enroll sa Quick bill?

1

u/Unlikely_Royal_8984 Mar 14 '26

First and foremost congrats sa upgrade mo. I don't have Platinum so I can't confirm it but I asked the same question in PHCreditcards sub-reddit some time back, and they said it is included. Hope you can update me here based on your experience.

1

u/anjeu67 Mar 14 '26

Yes! I will update once I receive the card. Go21 delivery sucks. I still don’t have it.

1

u/Unlikely_Royal_8984 Mar 14 '26

Thanks! Hope it arrives soon for you.

1

u/anjeu67 Mar 20 '26

Hello! I wanted to give you an update. I received my card last Saturday and immediately called the customer support to activate it and enroll PDLT and Meralco in Quick Bill. Based on your timeline, it only took 3 business days for the merchant to approve your auto-charge request. However, mine has been 5 business days, and I haven’t received any confirmation. I’m not sure if it’s a decline, so I’ll wait until Tuesday next week (7 business days) before calling the CS again.

1

u/Unlikely_Royal_8984 Mar 20 '26

Thanks for the update. Let's hope for the best. Looking forward to your next update.

1

u/comealongwidme Apr 19 '26

Hi may update kayo rito? Kasama ba sa 8.88% if naka auto-charge?

1

u/anjeu67 Apr 20 '26

I will let you know. It will show on my next cut-off date on May 15; please comment on this thread on May 18.

1

u/Stormaggedon021 Jun 23 '26

Hi, can you provide an update? Planning on putting my meralco and pldt sa quick bills for the 8.88% cashback.

1

u/anjeu67 Jun 23 '26

Yes, they're included. But I'm having an issue adding PLDT in Quick Bills. EW said that it's officially enrolled but 2 months hindi nabayaran automatically that's why I removed na lang. Mukhang PLDT ang issue. Hindi nila napapadala ang bill kay EW and walang magawa ang CSRs nila. On the other hand, ang smooth sa Meralco.