Paying bills while cruising

On 7/17/2009 10:40 PM, Judy Heuman wrote:

First, let me thank all of you who have replied -- you have given me
much food for thought.

But, I'm asking about this autopay thing. I seem to remember that one
time our Mastercard offered such a set up to me and I turned it down.
After all, what happens if they make an error on your bill?

First of all, it is not Mastecard that offers this. As a
consumer, you do not deal with Mastercard. You deal with a bank
that issues it (Citibank, Chase, etc.). You logon to the bank's
website and pay your bill, and that is where you would do the
autopay.

Somehow, I don't like to lose control of the oversight I can achieve
if the paper bill comes to me before I pay it. OTOH, it's becoming
more inconvenient since in our retirement, we are traveling so much
more often and for longer periods of time.

How often do you have errors on your credit card statement? And
even if there are, your rights to dispute a charge are not
diminished if you pay your bill. You still have 60 days from the
date of the statement to dispute a charge. Yes, if someone
charges $5000 fraudulently on your card it will be inconvenient
if it is automatically paid. But given that all of the autopay
systems I know of pay on the due date, you're going to have
quite a bit of time to view that statement before the bill gets
paid.

Do you know if it is possible to set up an autopay just for this trip
and then cancel it when I get home? Have you had any difficulties
with this autopay?

I have never had any problems, and with my banks it is trivial
to turn it on and off. You do it on their website.

Bill

Judy Heuman wrote:
In the past we have never taken a cruise longer than two weeks and
this was not a problem. But, we are planning a longer cruise for next
year -- a back to back -- taking 27 days plus a few days pre-cruise
and a day or two post-cruise.

I'm thinking ahead and wondering how we will pay the bills that arrive
while we're gone. Some of our bills are automatic payments and they
are no problem. But, I'm concerned about credit cards where the
amount payable is due each month and the credit card companies give
only 2 or 2 1/2 weeks in which to make the payment.

Reading this newsgroup I see quite a few of you have taken longer
holidays and I'd like to know how to solve the problem of paying the
bills while on a cruise. How do can we do this?

Is the only solution to do on-line banking knowing how inefficient the
Internet connections are while on the ship?

I'd appreciate your tips. Thanks.

Judy
================================================== =============
Judy Heuman

There are all kinds of ways to get creative for bill paying. I have as
many of my bills as possible go on a credit card that earns me miles.
So far every utility accepts credit card and all I am missing is my
mortgage payment. (One additional benefit to doing that is that about
every other year, we have enough miles to fly first class to Japan or
Europe!) then we have automatic payment set up at our credit union to
have at least the minimum amount paid to the credit card and whatever
amount I set up for the mortgage. The way I have it set up, I can be
gone indefinitely!

Just set up your bills in automatic mode and check them before you leave
and as soon as you get back.

Have fun on your trip!


--
Ray Contreras
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
http://www.CompressorStuff.com
http://www.rayzplace.com

Judy Heuman wrote:


First, let me thank all of you who have replied -- you have given me
much food for thought.

But, I'm asking about this autopay thing. I seem to remember that one
time our Mastercard offered such a set up to me and I turned it down.
After all, what happens if they make an error on your bill?

Somehow, I don't like to lose control of the oversight I can achieve
if the paper bill comes to me before I pay it. OTOH, it's becoming
more inconvenient since in our retirement, we are traveling so much
more often and for longer periods of time.

Do you know if it is possible to set up an autopay just for this trip
and then cancel it when I get home? Have you had any difficulties
with this autopay?

Judy
================================================== =============
Judy Heuman


Credit card companies love going paperless. It saves them a ton on
printing and mailing costs. Some even give you a bonus for going
paperless. If you are worried about them doing something wrong, just
set up your account to do an automatic payment of the minimum amount
due. You can always pay it off in full when you get home. And if you
pay your bill in full before the autopay date, then there will be no
automatic payments to worry about.

--
Ray Contreras
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
http://www.CompressorStuff.com
http://www.rayzplace.com

I have not had any trouble with the credit card payments being
automatic. My credit card (which is a VISA from a credit union) is
very good at picking up fraudulent charges - some that I wouldn't have
found for some weeks. I've had them issue new cards twice when the
number was compromised. And as has been also noted - you don't lose
your rights just because you pay. A debit card might be more of a
problem.

There are all kinds of ways to get creative for bill paying. I have as
many of my bills as possible go on a credit card that earns me miles.
So far every utility accepts credit card and all I am missing is my
mortgage payment. (One additional benefit to doing that is that about
every other year, we have enough miles to fly first class to Japan or
Europe!) then we have automatic payment set up at our credit union to
have at least the minimum amount paid to the credit card and whatever
amount I set up for the mortgage. The way I have it set up, I can be
gone indefinitely!

Just set up your bills in automatic mode and check them before you leave
and as soon as you get back.

We no longer have a mortgage payment, but when we did, we set it up to
come out of the bank account at the bank where we had the mortgage.
The same for our boat payment. Of course that is in the old days when
banks were local. Our local bank became Mercantile Bank about 10
years ago, and now is PNC which caused us to remove all our accounts
from there and put them into a local credit union.

Ray Goldenberg wrote:


Hi Judy,

I use a bill paying service (paytrust.com). I have all of my bills,
paper and ebills, go directly to them. They scan the paper bills and
offer them up electronically. I can see them anywhere I have internet
access. You then see the actual bill and can pay it or schedule a
payment as you wish. They pay those invoices either electronically or
by a paper check. They have been doing this for me for many years and
I have never had any problems with them. They do charge a small
monthly fee ($9.95) but I have a record and digital copy of all of my
bills going back for many years. They even make a CD available if you
would like every year that has up to 3-years of your bills and payment
history.


I had forgotten about this - our credit union used to charge us a
small amount for the on-line bill paying, but it is now free. The
people I know that use a service do pay a fee for it.

I have had two different daughters do my banking for me. One of them
I just gave online access to my bank account, and she paid the bills
that she got from it.

The other one didn't want to do that, so I had the mail forwarded to
her, and she would email me if she got anything important. I was
using pocketmail at that point and I could download the headers
quickly, so she just put the whole message in the header (something
like the twittering of today). The email title would say something
like "MC $435.00 - CO taxes $2546.00 - StM bank bal $5692.00" and
there was no body to the message.

Then I would pay on-line or email back and tell her which items to
forward to me and where we would be, and then she'd email when she
sent them. I gave her a check of about $100 to start and when she'd
spent that on forwarding, I gave her another one.

This was in the days when I could have mail forwarded weekly from the
PO for free. Now I have to pay $10 per time the things are forwarded.
Also there's no good way to get mail on a cruise that I've found.

In article ,
Judy Heuman wrote:

But, I'm asking about this autopay thing. I seem to remember that one
time our Mastercard offered such a set up to me and I turned it down.
After all, what happens if they make an error on your bill?

Somehow, I don't like to lose control of the oversight I can achieve
if the paper bill comes to me before I pay it. OTOH, it's becoming
more inconvenient since in our retirement, we are traveling so much
more often and for longer periods of time.

I still get paper bills for almost all the cards on autopay. It is
usually two different operations. For one that it wasn't, the e-bill
gets here a couple of days earlier than the paper bill, I print it out,
and you have a paper bill to peruse and look for errors to your heart's
content.


Do you know if it is possible to set up an autopay just for this trip
and then cancel it when I get home? Have you had any difficulties
with this autopay?

You can opt in and out.

--
Searching is half the fun: life is much more manageable when thought
of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party.
Jimmy Buffett

On Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:09:32 -0400, Rosalie B.
wrote:

I had forgotten about this - our credit union used to charge us a
small amount for the on-line bill paying, but it is now free. The
people I know that use a service do pay a fee for it.

Hi Everyone,

The difference between on-line bill paying through your bank/credit
union and a bill paying service like Paytrust is that the bill paying
service will receive, scan, and retain your bills. I have found this
to be extremely helpful. YMMV

Best regards,
Ray
LIGHTHOUSE TRAVEL
800-719-9917 or 805-566-3905
http://www.lighthousetravel.com
--

Ray Goldenberg wrote:

On Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:09:32 -0400, Rosalie B.
wrote:

I had forgotten about this - our credit union used to charge us a
small amount for the on-line bill paying, but it is now free. The
people I know that use a service do pay a fee for it.

Hi Everyone,

The difference between on-line bill paying through your bank/credit
union and a bill paying service like Paytrust is that the bill paying
service will receive, scan, and retain your bills. I have found this
to be extremely helpful. YMMV


Yes it is important to distinguish between using a bank or financial
institution (I think I might also be able to use a brokerage account),
and using a service.

The services that many boaters use is St. Brendan's Isle
http://www.sbimailservice.com/mail-services.htm (which I have not
used, but have heard only good things about them) They are
particularly good for boaters as they will forward boat parts but they
also do business travelers and RV people

With the new Wells Fargo app you don't depend on the ship's internet
service, but you do incur roaming charges. OTOH in most countries you'll
find free WiFi at many places.

https://www.wellsfargo.com/jump/online/iphoneannounce

Wells Fargo appears to guarantee the security of the service:

https://www.wellsfargo.com/privacy_s...line/guarantee

On Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:09:32 -0400, Rosalie B.
wrote:

I have not had any trouble with the credit card payments being
automatic.

Thanks to all of you who replied! You have given me the information I
needed and I called our credit card companies this morning. Surprise
to me, they will do automatic payments even though our account is in a
different bank. It seems easy enough to do -- statements are sent
about two weeks before payment is due so you have a chance to check it
over to see that the charges are correct. Payment is taken on the last
due date.

We're going to sign up for this and see how it works while we're still
home and have time to opt out if anything seems amiss.

Thanks a lot -- this is NOT the first time a few of you have helped
our cruise plans and I appreciate the replies I have received from so
many who travel more than we do and have experience with all this
stuff.

But, watch for more questions from me! Our next cruise is long and to
countries unfamiliar to us.

Judy
================================================== =============
Judy Heuman

Last year we spent a month in New Zealand (not cruising) just traveling
around in an RV. A few months before we went I made a list of all bills
and when they would come due.

I had two choices, pay a large amount the month before so it would cover
the next month, or copy the payment coupon and have it ready to be
mailed (estimated amount) the day we left. Mostly I did the former. For
example, I paid double on our electric and gas bills.

I knew we weren't going to be using our credit card much down there
because of the surcharge (we took cash) so when credit card statements
came in I paid them in full plus any charges that hadn't shown up yet.
However, if you carry a balance, you can't just pay double the amount
and think that you can skip the next bill. That one you'll have to copy
the coupon and pay it just before you leave.

The mortgage you can't pay double either, they think it's just a higher
amount going toward principal. You have to make a separate payment. You
can pay ahead. Just make sure it's separate from the previous month and
you put the month it applies to on the coupon.

It takes some organization and making lists before hand. Fortunately I
use Quicken so it helped a lot.

Hope this helps.


Judy Heuman wrote:
In the past we have never taken a cruise longer than two weeks and
this was not a problem. But, we are planning a longer cruise for next
year -- a back to back -- taking 27 days plus a few days pre-cruise
and a day or two post-cruise.

I'm thinking ahead and wondering how we will pay the bills that arrive
while we're gone. Some of our bills are automatic payments and they
are no problem. But, I'm concerned about credit cards where the
amount payable is due each month and the credit card companies give
only 2 or 2 1/2 weeks in which to make the payment.

Reading this newsgroup I see quite a few of you have taken longer
holidays and I'd like to know how to solve the problem of paying the
bills while on a cruise. How do can we do this?

Is the only solution to do on-line banking knowing how inefficient the
Internet connections are while on the ship?

I'd appreciate your tips. Thanks.

Judy
================================================== =============
Judy Heuman