Credit-Card Bill Pay

Credit-card company often offer auto bill pay

Many credit card companies also now offer automatic bill pay. Visa, American Express and MasterCard all offer these bill-paying services at no extra fee, and the charges are added onto your monthly bill. You submit a list of the bills you'd like paid from a limited list, and then the credit card company pays them, charging the amount to your card. The main hitch is that you have to visit each company's website to sign up for this service, and it can take up to 60 days to get it going. If the company you want to pay -- mainly the big utilities, insurance companies and Internet service providers handled at all three credit card companies -- isn't on the list, you're out of luck. However, you can view payments online, sign up for alerts and get payment confirmations, which helps track expenses.

Bankrate.com says that paying bills with credit cards makes sense when you're automating payments because you're better protected if there's an error or dispute. Another plus is that you can sometimes chalk up big rewards or free airline miles as payments build up. The downside is that if you don't pay your credit card bill by the end of each month, interest accrues. "That automatic 'convenience' suddenly got more expensive," adds Bankrate writer Dana Dratch.