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• What is the Best Credit Card to Pay Bills in the Philippines?

What is the Best Credit Card to Pay Bills in the Philippines?

Using a credit card is one of the most convenient and safest ways to pay bills. It spares you the hassle of lining up at malls and remittance centers and paying in cash or check. Instead, you can make utility payments online with your card at home. When you pay bills with a credit card, you can track your expenses more easily. You can just view your card’s billing statement to check if all your bills for the month are settled.

What’s the best credit card to pay bills, you might ask. It’s the one that provides maximum savings and convenience when used to pay for electricity, water, mobile postpaid, internet, cable, and other utilities.

Keep reading to learn more about the best credit cards to pay utility bills in the Philippines.

Read More:

• A Guide to Paying Electricity Bills with Meralco Online
• Simple Steps to Check and Pay for Your Maynilad Water Bill Online

What to Consider When Choosing the Best Credit Card to Pay Bills

Cashback or Rewards for Bills Payment

Do I get cashback for paying bills?You might be wondering if you’ll be rewarded for using a credit card to pay bills. Well, it depends on the card. Some credit cards earn cashback or rewards points on utilities while others don’t.

If you pay a lot of bills every month, it’s best to get a cashback or rewards credit card that lets you collect rebates or points each time you charge your utility payments to it. Rather than overspend on non-essentials, you rack up more rewards with bills you’re going to pay for anyway.

Automatic Payment Feature

How does auto-pay work? Most credit card providers in the Philippines have an auto-charge program that helps cardholders ensure that all their bills are paid on time. This feature makes life easier for busy and forgetful people, especially parents who are dealing with multiple household expenses.

When you enroll in your issuing bank’s auto-payment facility, your bills will be automatically charged to your credit card. All you have to do is pay the total amount due in your credit card billing statement. This way, you avoid missing due dates and paying penalty fees for late bills payment.

Auto-Pay vs Cashback/Rewards

However, some auto-charge facilities are exempted from cashback or rewards programs. This means the bills you pay through auto-charge won’t earn rebates or points.

In such a case, you can choose to pay your bills through another channel (such as directly on the biller’s website or app) if you still want to earn rebates or rewards. But if you prefer the convenience of auto-charging your bills to your card, you may enroll in the program, give up the opportunity to earn points or rebates on your utility payments, and just earn them through your other credit card transactions.

Want to get both benefits? Choose a credit card for utilities that allow you to earn cashback or points for bills paid through the bank’s auto-charge program.

Lastly, most auto-charge facilities allow enrollment of certain billers only. Check the auto-pay program terms and conditions to see if your billers can be enrolled.

Best Credit Cards to Pay Bills in the Philippines

Security Bank Complete Cashback Mastercard

Bills Payment Features:

• 3% cashback on utilities
• Security Bank Bills Assist Program: Settle your monthly bills automatically through your Security Bank credit card.
• SimplyPay: Pay utility billers that require bank deposits using your credit card.

Security Bank’s cashback credit card offers the highest rebate rate on utility bills payment at 3%. The card also earns tiered rebates on other essentials, saving you as much as PHP 1,000 on your monthly credit card bill.

You also have the option to enroll your utility bills in the Bills Assist Program. Some of the billers you can enroll include Meralco, Globe, PLDT, Sun, SkyCable, and Cablelink. Such a payment facility automatically charges all the enrolled bills to your credit card. However, you won’t earn cashback on bills enrolled in Bills Assist. Use other bills payment channels if you prefer saving money through rebates over the convenience of having your bills auto-charged to your card.

Lastly, Security Bank has a new feature called SimplyPay^[1] that allows you to conveniently pay with your credit card for utilities and other expenses (e.g., rent, hospital bills, insurance, etc.) that require bank deposit as the payment method.

Other Features and Benefits:

• Minimum monthly income requirement: PHP 30,000
• Annual fee: PHP 3,000
• Interest rate: 3.50% (free for the first year only)
• Cashback on other transactions: 5% on groceries, 4% on gas, 2% on dining, and 1% on shopping
• Maximum rebate: PHP 12,000 per year

Citi Cash Back

Bills Payment Features:

• Up to 2% cashback on Meralco bill payments through Citibank Online or Citi One Bill
• Citi One Bill: Automatically charge utility bills to your Citibank credit card.

Meralco customers with large power consumption at home or office can save a lot on electricity bill payments using the Citi Cash Back card. Simply pay Meralco bills with a Citi credit card via Citibank’s online banking facility or enroll them in Citi One Bill for automatic payments.

Either way, you’ll earn up to a 2% rebate on your Meralco payments. Get the maximum cashback rate when your credit card transactions on non-supermarket and non-Meralco expenses (such as fuel, dining, medicine, and shopping) reach at least PHP 10,000 per month.

Other Features and Benefits:

• Minimum monthly income requirement: PHP 15,000 (for existing cardholders) / PHP 20,833.33 (for first-time cardholders)
• Annual fee: PHP 3,500 (free for the first year)
• Interest rate: 3.50%
• Cashback on other purchases: Up to 6% on groceries and 0.20% cashback on all other purchases
• Maximum rebate: PHP 12,000 per year

UnionBank Gold Mastercard

Bills Payment Features:

• 1.5% cashback on all transactions, including utility payments
• Auto Bills Payment: Charge your utilities automatically to your UnionBank credit card.

With this UnionBank cashback credit card, you can earn a 1.5% rebate on all transactions charged to the card, including your utility bill payments. The cashback doesn’t expire, so you can redeem it anytime and get unlimited savings. With this feature, it might be the best credit card to pay bills.

Bills enrolled in UnionBank’s auto payment facility are exempted from earning rebates, though. If you want to earn cashback using the Gold Mastercard, use other online services for bills payment.

Other Features and Benefits:

• Minimum monthly income requirement: PHP 30,000
• Annual fee: PHP 2,500
• Interest rate: 3.50%
• No maximum rebate cap

Metrobank Rewards Plus Visa

Bills Payment Features:

• 2 rewards points per PHP 20 spend on telco bills
• 1 rewards point per PHP 20 spend on utilities charged to Bills2Pay
• Bills2Pay Auto Charge Program: Have your monthly utility bills automatically charged to your Metrobank credit card.

Earn rewards fast on your payments for mobile postpaid, landline, and home internet services using the Metrobank Rewards Plus Visa. The card also allows you to earn points on utilities (such as Globe, Smart, Innove, and PLDT Home) enrolled in the Bills2Pay program. Such a feature makes this Metrobank credit card better than other rewards cards that mostly don’t earn points on bills enrolled in the bank’s auto-payment facility.

Other Features and Benefits:

• Minimum monthly income requirement: PHP 29,166.67
• Annual fee: PHP 2,500 (free for the first year)
• Interest rate: 3.50%
• Rewards:
  • Double points for online purchases, transportation services, gadget purchases, and automobile services
  • 1 point per PHP 20 spend on all other purchases

HSBC Red Mastercard

Bills Payment Features:

• 4x bonus points per PHP 20 spend on online transactions, including bills payment
• HSBC AutoCharge: Pay multiple utility bills automatically through your HSBC credit card.

The HSBC Red Mastercard lets you ramp up your rewards just by paying your bills online with it. What’s more, you can easily settle your utility payments for billers like Globe, PLDT, Sun, and SkyCable through the HSBC AutoCharge. Bills paid through AutoCharge earn bonus points, with a limit of up to PHP 100,000 per transaction.

Other Features and Benefits:

• Minimum monthly income requirement: PHP 16,666.67
• Annual fee: PHP 1,500
• Interest rate: 3.50%
• Rewards:
  • 1 point per PHP 20 spend
  • 4x bonus points on dining, shopping, and overseas transactions
• Cashback: 6% on your first Caltex fuel purchase, plus 3% cash back all year round

Citi Rewards Mastercard

Bills Payment Features:

• 1 rewards point per PHP 30 spend on all transactions, including utility payments
• Citi One Bill: Automatically charge utility bills to your Citibank credit card.

When you pay bills using the Citi Rewards Card, you earn 1 point per PHP 30 spend. Citi One Bill charges, as well as bills payment via Citibank Online or the Citi Mobile App, also earn points up to the following transaction limits:

• Maynilad, Meralco, PLDT and VECO – Up to PHP 20,000 per transaction for Citi One Bill charges or up to PHP 20,000 per merchant per statement cycle for bills paid via Citibank Online or the Citi Mobile App
• Bayantel, Digitel, Globe, ICC, Sky Cable/Home Cable, and Smart – Up to PHP 100,000 per merchant per statement cycle for bills paid via Citibank Online or the Citi Mobile App
• Other bill merchants – Up to PHP 100,000 per transaction for Citi One Bill charges

Other Features and Benefits:

• Minimum monthly income requirement: PHP 15,000 (for existing cardholders) / PHP 20,833.33 (for first-time cardholders)
• Annual fee: PHP 2,500 (free for the first year only)
• Interest rate: 3.50%
• Rewards: 3x points per PHP 30 spend on shopping, dining, and Cebu Pacific flights

RCBC Flex Gold Visa

Bills Payment Features:

• 1 rewards point per PHP 250 spend on utilities
• RCBC Bankard Fast BillsPay: Charge bills on demand or automatically to your RCBC credit card.

Apart from double rewards on three essential categories, the Flex Gold Visa lets you earn points on your utility bill payments. You can even get rewards on payments for bills enrolled in the Fast BillsPay facility. With the Fast BillsPay feature, you can make either a one-time or recurring bills payment. Billers you can enroll for auto-charging include Manila Water, Meralco, Cignal, Sky Cable, Globe, PLDT, and Smart.

Other Features and Benefits:

• Minimum monthly income requirement: PHP 30,000
• Annual fee: PHP 3,000
• Interest rate: 3.50%
• Rewards:
  • 2x points per certain spend on any three of your chosen categories (grocery, gas, travel, department store, or household appliances)
  • 1 point per PHP 50 spend on other non-service merchants and per PHP 125 spend on service merchants
• Travel privileges: Travel insurance, purchase protection, and free access to Skyview Airport Lounge

What is the Best Credit Card for Utilities?

Can’t decide yet? Let’s trim down your choices. Here’s our recommendations for those looking for the best credit card to pay bills.

• Best overall and for earning cashback on utilities: Security Bank Complete Cashback Mastercard
• Best for earning rewards on utilities: HSBC Red Mastercard
• Best credit card to pay Meralco bills: Citi Cash Back
• Best credit card to pay telco bills: Metrobank Rewards Plus Visa

How to Pay Bills with a Credit Card Online

Nowadays, most bills payment transactions using a credit card are done online. Aside from auto-pay facilities, cardholders may use other methods to pay bills in the safety and comfort of their home.

Bills can be paid through the credit card provider’s online banking platform, the billers’ website or app, or third-party bills payment apps. No need to go outside and have the card swiped.

Paying bills online is quite similar to the checkout process on an online shopping site. Below are the steps you can follow once you have your best credit card to pay bills.

• Just choose credit card as your payment method
• Provide the required details as they appear on your card and billing statement
• Verify and submit your payment information. You might receive an OTP (One Time Password) verification number to confirm your payment.

If you choose an auto-charge service to pay bills with a credit card, just enroll by calling your issuing bank’s hotline. You’ll be asked for details regarding your credit card account and the bills you wish to enroll. Once you’ve set your bills to be paid automatically with your card, the only thing you’ll have to worry about is paying your credit card bill every month.

Final Thoughts

Paying bills with a credit card comes with many advantages. You can maximize such benefits when you use credit card to pay bills. Also, always make sure to pay your credit card bill in full every month so that you won’t lose the chance of earning rewards or cashback.

Sources:

• ^[1] Security Bank SimplyPay

Venus Zoleta

Venus is an experienced personal finance writer with a background in digital marketing, public relations, and journalism. She’s into stock, VUL, and mutual fund investing. Follow Venus on LinkedIn.