Before reading this post, please read Use Vanilla Reload Cards to Load your Bluebird Card. Now that you have money in your Bluebird account, how do you pay your credit card bills?
First, go to www.bluebird.com and log into your account.
After you log in, you will see your account summary and current Bluebird balance. Click the first tab called Pay & Transfer and select Pay a Bill.
The first thing you will need to do is add a payee (bank or company) to pay. The easiest way to do this is by searching for the payee’s name.
For example, if you want to pay your Discover It credit card bill, search for Discover and click the one that is the closest match. In this case, I click Discover Card.
Enter a nickname for the card and enter your 16 digit account (credit card) number into the boxes. Click Save & Pay to send a bill payment to your payee.
Now that you added a payee to your Bluebird account, click the green Pay button.
If you have multiple payees, make sure you select the correct one from the drop down menu. Enter the amount you want to pay, leave the memo blank, and click review. The date at the bottom shows the business day the payment will post to your credit card account.
Review the bill payment, making sure the amount is correct. You will have to enter your PIN before submitting your bill payment.
Congratulations, you have just sent a bill payment from your Bluebird account to your credit card account. The bill payment should post to your credit card account by midnight on the date listed below.
If you go back to your Bluebird home page, you will see your account balance is automatically updated and you can see the details of your recent bill payment.
You will also receive a confirmation email from Bluebird with your bill payment details.
After a few days, your payment will post to your credit card account.
If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.
No idea how I wound up here or why you go through so many steps to pay a single bill.
Guessing something to do with airline miles?
You must have searched on Google for something about Bluebird. You will find a lot of info related to BB on these pages.
how long do you think until chase or american express will shut a card down for primarily using this method to get miles?
I have no idea, but if you don’t go out control by spending thousands of dollars on a card, you should be fine. it is best to spread out the charges on different cards from different banks. Keep your credit utilization ratio low on all the cards.
Great post again breaking down how to use bluebird. To go along with the previous comment I have read on other sites cautioning against just paying your whole credit card bill this way. I do have some legitimate bills I can pay such as car payment, student loan and auto insurance so I might just mix it up with those to be safe and use my regular checking account to pay the CC bills.
Thanks again for the post.
That’s a great idea Syed. If you have regular bills, please use Bluebird to pay those. In my current situation (living at home with my parents) I really don’t have any bills that can be paid with Bluebird accept credit card bills. Other bills can be paid with other credit cards.
This is a super beginners question, which I haven’t been able to find my own answer to yet. What is the advantage of using BlueBird? Its obvious that its a miles thing, but I haven’t found what you gain specifically by using BlueBird…can you point me in the right direction?
Thanks!
Good afternoon AH, great question. Bluebird is a great way to meet credit card minimum spend requirements (get sign up bonus) and earn points at a relatively low price.
Hey Grant,
Thanks for responding. Right, that much I understand but how does it work? Have you written about this already? I understand you can use it to pay your bills, but how does that give you the sign up bonuses and miles? I guess I don’t understand why it is any different than using you miles credit card and paying it off with your bank account. I think I am missing an obvious and important step, because to me BlueBird looks like an online payment option similar to banking online (once you put money in the account.) I guess I don’t understand how that translate into bonuses and miles.
Thanks for you time!
Very good question. Here is an example I did a few months ago:
1 – Sign up for a new Southwest Airlines credit card that gives me 50,000 bonus points after I spend $2,000 in 3 months.
2 – I can go to CVS and buy 4 $500 Vanilla Reload Cards for $2,000 + a small amount for activation fees.
3 – I load the Vanilla Reload Cards to my Bluebird Card and use Bluebird to send a bill payment to my Southwest Airlines credit card.
4 – I have essentially spent $2,000 and had $2,000 sent to my credit card, so I only owe a small amount from the Vanilla Reload Card activation fees.
Does that make sense?
Wouldn’t this be considered some kind of fraud?
Why would this be considered fraud? Am I breaking any rules/laws?
Holy Moly. This is pretty, impressively awesome. Yes I understand now. Thanks so much for your time and posting your advice so clearly and friendly.
AH
Grant how do you transfer money from Bluebird account on your checknig accound with for example Wells Fargo. Is that possible?
Good question, it is possible. I need to write up a post about that. Click send money, then add your bank account info, then enter the amount, and click send.
Hi Grant,
Can I transfer money from Bluebird to a checking account, say with Wells Fargo?
Hi,
Instead of this long process to pay bills, isn’t in possible to treat Bluebird as you would any other checking account and use your bank account and routing number to pay a credit card bill online? For instance, I have just made a payment for my credit card by using my Bluebird account and routing numbers, which so far has been accepted.
Thanks
I’m sure that works just as well. You method pulls money from Bluebird. My method pushes money from Bluebird to my credit card accounts.
Are you saying that you are able to have funds automatically deducted from your Bluebird account by providing the routing number to your credit card company? If yes, is this the same routing number one sees when setting up Direct Deposit on Bluebird’s website? I thought that was to be used only for adding funds to Bluebird.
I would recommend doing bill pay from Bluebird to your credit card account. That works much easier.
Well, I only mentioned credit card because Lauren mentioned it. Plus, she seems to have been able to use her Bluebird account as a traditional checking account by having a company deduct funds from it via routing numbers, which I would very much like to do since the only way my light utility company accepts payments without a fee is from checking accounts. I would love so bad to be able to earn cash back on that payment though. So, I was hoping to add funds to my Bluebird account via PayPal debit card (therefore earning cash back), and then have my light utility company take the payment from my Bluebird account. I guess I could then manually make the payment from within Bluebird, but I would like the least amount of steps possible. Plus, I am still very curious if companies can deduct funds from Bluebird accounts like a traditional checking account.
You might want to check Evolve Money since your light utility company might be a payee. You can use a credit card to make that payment.
I’ve noticed random payees show as unavailable even though bills have been paid before. Come across this before?
After you pay them once, the “unavailable” should disappear.
Been using Bluebird to pay for Citi, AE, Chase credit card bills but always makes me nervous since no address is shown on their payee list. So far so good, but now I have a Barclay credit card bill to pay and had no idea if their “BARCLAY DELAWARE BANK” was the payee I needed to choose. Yea, the name is the same but Barclay is also an on-line bank. How am I to know my payment wouldn’t go to credit card processing and instead go to their banking division in a different location. Asked the rep on the phone. They would not tell me what electronic location their Barclay payee represents. They suggested I call Barclay and use the Bluebird card to pay directly over the phone. Is that really possible? Now I see in your example you have paid Barclay on occasion. I know I could add a payee but then they send a paper check which takes longer.
Do the same steps as other credit card bill payments. Send a $1.00 bill payment and see if it shows up in the right account. As long as you enter your account number (aka credit card number) it should go to the right account.
Good idea. I have a little time before the bill is due so I’ll try that out first. Thanks.
Kent, how did this turn out? Was Barclay Delaware Bank the correct payee for barclays credit cards?
I used Grant’s suggestion of making a test $1 payment and was indeed able to pay my Barclaycard Arrival World for anyone else that was still curious about whether or not Barclay Delaware Bank worked. Will be using BB for all future Barclay payments! Thank you!
Hi Grant, thanks for the post. I am new to BB and VR, was able to buy from a CVS nearby using cc. I basically know how it works loading funds from VR to BB and what BB can do, but I have some concerns, hope you can share your thoughts on them:
1. The monthly loading limit from VR online seems to be 5,000, but I believe that spending whole 5k on a single cc, the card issuer might be triggered to conduct a financial review. Do you think it’s more wise to average the spending for 2-3 cards? From what I know, Amex FR might be easy if you spend too much. I am thinking to split to 2 cards with ~15k each, I guess 2-3k per card shouldn’t be a problem, what do you think?
2. BB can pay credit card bill, from your point of view, does Bank like this way, especially they already has the bill pay function, say, Chase? For paying cc bill, I am thinking what should be the best way to make the bank think you are not abusing this VR to bb thing, although I don’t know whether they are aware of this or not. From Amex BB point of view, I am thinking not to just use the funded money from VR to pay exact amount of bill you owe from buying VR and not to pay bill just after loading the money. Example like I buy 1k VR and loaded to BB, and then immediately pay bill to the same card I use to purchase VR. Try to mix the category, pay a couple of utility, loan bill as well as using ATM every once in a while.
Thanks.
Good morning Cong, yes you are right. I don’t recommend spending very much on each card to buy only vanilla reload cards from CVS. I have several cards that I used and I only buy one or two vanilla reload cards per month. Also I recommend that you let the funds sit in your bluebird account for a few days before you do a bill pay payments, and make the bill pay payments not a round number, like $457.64.
I’m sure the banks know what is going on, but as long as they make money, it’s alright with them.
If you have time, I would recommend reading the comment section on all my bluebird posts.
Thanks for the detailed post!
I have a question though: how does BB send the money to the credit card companies? Do they print a check and mail it? Wire/ACH?
I’m asking for two reasons: I need to know how long before the payment due date of my CC I need to submit the bill payment and also how safe this method is. I’m afraid that if my payment gets lost on the way I may find out about it too late.
If you do bill pay through Bluebird, it takes 1-2 business days to post in your credit card account. Bluebird is considered a bank so it is an ACH payment. As long as you enter your credit card info correctly, the money will not get lost.
If I use a Citi AA to meet the min spend and buy 4 VR cards at CVS and then load to BB do you know if I could pay off half of a mortgage for a family member to meet the minimum spend for a sign up bonus? And then just have that person pay the other half like they normally do? The reason is the mortgage is 4300 and I don’t want to put that much on the card since the min spend is 3k
Yes, Bluebird’s bill pay is just like a normal checking account where you can pay bills and mail checks to whoever you want.
Do you buy the Vanilla Reloads and use the Bluebird to send payment directly to the same credit card used to purchase?
Yes but I don’t make the payments exactly $500, I mix up the amount.
Can a Bluebird card be used just like any credit card to pay any bills that currently accepts a credit card payment? I realize this kind of negates the need for loading VR’s, however I am just trying to meet the minimum spends on several cards during the first month so I loaded a bunch of VR’s to BB and now a family member has several bills that are due which I can use in order to use up the money I loaded to BB over the next few months. Will this work fine or do you specifically have to use the bill pay feature in BB?
Bluebird can be used as a credit card to pay certain bills like cable, internet, etc. do whatever you want with Bluebird, it is your money.
Yes it’s heat bill, electric bill and cell phone bill
That’s fine, go for it. Ideally you would use the credit card you are working on reaching minimum spend to pay the bills, but this is just an extra step.
Thanks. I realize I could just do the bill pay to pay off the credit cards but for some reason I feel funny doing this.
Bluebird will like you for using your Bluebird Card the appropriate way rather than just using it for traditional bill paying.
Just activated my bluebird. After loading with vanilla reloads, what is the next step? Do I have to link bank acc & debit cards? Or just pay the credit card? Finally can I use BB to pay multiple credit cards same month?
TIA
You can link a debit card and a bank account if you want. I have my personal checking account linked and my PayPal debit card, so I earn cash back loading my Bluebird Card. You can pay as many bills as you want through Bluebird.
Hey Grant,
If I pay a Citi credit card bill using Bluebird, so I have to pay it on the date the bill is due or can I pay it any time? The reason I ask is I tried to pay off my statement balance through Citicards and they wouldn’t let me, so I am curious if Bluebird which just allow a payment at any time so I can get my credit utilization down?
You can pay your Citi bill anytime, preferably before the due date. It takes 1-2 business days for your bill payment to post to your credit card account, but I usually pay a few days after the statement closes.
Can you pay your entire balance?
Sure, you can do a Bluebird bill payment for the full amount of your current Bluebird balance.
Hi Grant, great blog – especially for newbies like me. Just applied for my BB card today and am wondering if recurring payments (say for a monthly car payment) can be set up using BB? I didn’t see mention of it on the site but may have overlooked it. Thanks.
I don’t believe Bluebird has that feature, you will have to manually schedule the payments. Hopefully Bluebird implements that feature soon.
Hi Grant can you tell me how long do you wait between the date you buy a VR on your cc and the date you do the bill pay on BB? Will you accumulate several thousand and pay it in one lump sum or rather send several $500 or $1000 payments?
It depends, I start paying it down, not off, when it’s around $1400 or so. I don’t like having large balance so I try to keep them low. You can mix in other non-VRC purchases too.
Hi Grant, Thanks for all the helpful info! I have a question about buying VRC at CVS. The only card of mine they have accepted is my Ink plus, my Capital One & Club Carlson (both of which I am trying to meet minimum spend) were not accepted. The cards are fine, I can use them else where. All three cards are Visa’s, any idea what the problem might be? I don’t want to raise any flags by calling the credit card companies and asking.
That is really strange. I would try to purchase something at CVS for a few dollars. If that doesn’t go through, I would definitely call the credit card company. It might be something wrong with CVS’s cash registers.
I have been buying VR for 3 months at CVS with different credit cards. Just recently tried to use my Barclay arrival card and was denied. I called them, and it triggered their fraud alert (?). They cleared it and I was able to use the card immediately. I am mainly using Bluebird for mortgage, utilities. I plan on using BB to pay my taxes also!
Sounds good, keep doing what you’re doing.
Is it save to pay $2k for Chase cc (even though I bought only $1k VR with CSP)? Been successfully paying loans, insurance, rent. Worried cos this will be my 1st MS via bluebird. Thanks
Why would you pay $2,000 to your CSP when you only owe $1,000?
Lil complicated at least for me. I owe 2k(other half is Amazon) on csp, also owe 2k on spg. My total bluebird balance is 3k. CSP is all MS but spg is all legit expenses. Basically I’m trying to pay spg legit balance with AP deposit via checking acc. Using spg’s VR + CSP ($1000 each) to pay CSP at once. I’m just switching. I dunno if I’ve made it clear.. Sorry.
You should be fine with whatever you are doing. If you pay part of CSP and part of SPG, that would be fine too.
Hi Grant:
I decided to get BB in addition to a regular checking account because I wanted a card that has no foreign transaction fee. Then I learned about the benefit of getting extra points on my credit card using the Vanilla Reloads.
Here is my setup: I get most of my paycheck on my regular bank account and ~10% sent to BB (just to accumulate over time for vacations etc). I thought that I could used my Amex Platinum to buy $1,000 of VR a month from Wal-Mart, load it to BB and use BB to pay off some small credit card bills, utilities, etc. I would be paying the Amex bill from the regular checking account.
Is that a good idea? Does Amex allow you to buy VR? I usually throw all of my large purchases on the card to get points. But I have the Amex card through my husband and I don’t want to do anything that might compromise his good standing with Amex.
As far as I know, you can no longer buy Vanilla Reload Cards with a credit card. However, you can buy $500 gift cards, add a PIN to them, and load them to your Bluebird Card by going to Walmart. It is a couple of extra steps, but might be worth it to accumulate extra miles and points. I would get a different card than the Bluebird for international purchases. Most places do not accept AMEX internationally, so you may want to get a Visa or MasterCard that has no FOREX.
Question for you to make sure my train of thought is correct.
Mortgage $3,000
Other monthly expenses $3,000 (bills, groceries, etc)
Buy gift cards (I can buy Simon Mall Visa Gift Cards at $500 increments with my credit card.
Use these cards to load my Bluebird account and pay the bills.
Get 6,000/month in travel points. Plus I would get more if I bought groceries with my travel awards card and paid it via Bluebird. (Example, $100 groceries to Walmart, buy $100 Simon card, pay credit card via Bluebird, the $100 Walmart bill turns into 200 points)
Is this thinking correct?
Sounds right to me.
Eric, have you been using the scenario you listed…loading you BB account with Simon Mall Visa Card’s and paying your Mortgage and other monthly expenses? Is everything working ok?
If I have to pay a bill over the phone with my bb card how or can I do this?
You will need to get their mailing address and your account number so you can do a bluebird check.
So I cannot pay bills over the phone. Just using my bb card?
Just use your Bluebird Card as a normal credit card to pay that bill.
I have been loading my Serve card up with GCs and paying them off via Billpay for a month now and everything has been working flawlessly. Hope it stays that way. I just signed my wife up for a BB card (she doesn’t have any CC so I didn’t need Serve’s extra features) so I can float more per month.
Good work. I don’t think you will have any problems with Bluebird. Let me know if you have any questions.
Well, using a credit card on Evolve Money doesn’t work. I just tried my PayPal Debit Card so I could get cash back and I got an error message that stated the card entered is not a debit card.
This comment above is in response to the one that starts off “You might want to check Evolve Money…”. There is no reply option under that comment.
Thanks Ro, I only allow 4 levels of nested comments, so if that was the 5th comment down, it doesn’t show the reply options.
Anyway, you are right. I’ve tried to use my PayPal Debit Card recently and got an error message too. It worked last month, but Evolve Money must be blocking those cards now.
im new to this. can i buy a $500 giftcard on my fidelity amex which gives me 2% back then load it to my bluebird account and transfer the money to checking account or pay the fidelity amex back? which is better paying with bluebird or regular checking or does it matter?
Either options works. I would pay the credit card directly from Bluebird.
Signed my mom up for Bluebird which I will fund using my credit card. I am trying to figure out how to withdraw my funds without being shut down. Can I pay MY credit card bills with HER bluebird account? If not, is sending a check to myself or fiancé the way to go?
You can pay anyone’s credit card bill from any Bluebird/Serve Card or you can transfer funds from her account to your account.
Hi Grant,
thanks for this valuable info. Hope it’s still working in 2015! Can I buy $500 gift cards from Office Depot (With my Chase Ink credit card), load it to my Bluebird account, then use the $500 (or other amounts) to pay off my American Airlines credit card debt/balance? Thanks!
Unfortunately you cannot buy $500 gift cards at office supply stores. They are cash only for the variable load cards.
I just wanted to say thanks, Grant!
I was feeling really iffy on the idea of using my Bluebird to pay on my Capital One card, and without this I never would’ve thought of sending in a $1 payment to make sure it works. ^_^
You’re welcome. I’m glad I could help.
HI Grant. I have not used BB before and just found out about it from my AMEX account. It sounds wonderful. I’ve never been able to pay a utility bill or other credit cards. I would love to pay another CC or a bill using my AMEX acct. It looks like with BB I could probably do that. I have used other services like Google Pay but my utility company is not on there. And using their send money version the utility company said they wouldn’t accept. Reading through here, it looks as if the paying with the BB check route may work? Have you heard of utility companies refusing to accept a check from BB this way? I assume it would have my name as the sender of the check but using BB as the service.
I haven’t used Bluebird in serval years, so I’m not sure what the service is like nowadays. I’m not sure it’s worth the hassle to pay her utility bill. You might want to check out Plastiq (https://travelwithgrant.boardingarea.com/2018/10/30/plastiq-now-offers-expedited-check-delivery-via-fedex-priority-overnight/)