Plastiq: Changes To Visa Personal Cards (Some Cards Coding As Cash Advance, Some Limited To 20% Of Credit & Others Unaffected)

As rumored Plastiq has announced some changes to using personal Visa credit cards. Apparently this is a change on Visa’s end and Plastiq is working with Visa to resolve these issues. Effective June 1st, 2018 most personal Visa cards are treated as a cash advance, some limit you to 20% of your credit limit. Plastiq has helpfully provided a full list of what is going on with each card, this can be found here. Basically the following is occurring:

  • Bank of America & Citi cards are treated as a cash advance
  • Chase personal Visa cards are limited to ~20% of your credit limit (e.g if your limit is $1,000 you can only charge $200)
  • Capital One & Visa gift cards are not affected

I wonder if Chase cards are initially coding as a cash advance and then reverting to a purchase and that’s why only ~20% of your credit limit can be used (this is usually the portion of your card limit that can be used on a cash advance) or if it’s about limiting exposure for Chase.

View Comments (42)

  • Just Paris a small amount of my total bill since the full amount was above my cash advance limit on my sapphire. Called into chase and they said it was coded as a cash advance and not a purchase. I thought plastiq had this covered and that visa would be purchased instead of cash advance. Anyone know what the situation is? Thanks

  • Hi @chucksithe - you've mentioned on another thread that you have a contact at Plastiq. Have you heard any updates to this? Despite what their support article says, I have VGCs issued by US Bank and Metabank that will not process through Plastiq trying to pay student loans (which I assume is because they're running as CA).

  • If the 20% limit is only applied to a single transaction, can we do multiple transactions within the same day / the same transaction, each equal to 20%?

    • I'm guessing it won't work since cash advance line will be maxed out in 'pending' stage and you'll have to wait until it clears. Try it out and see.

  • Trying to use my Chase Iberia card to pay a 1100 auto loan, credit line is 10,000 and cash advance limit is 1,000. Before submit, saw the notice saying the payment limit is ~20% of credit limit. Then payment got declined. Called Chase, and automatic line told me my last payment was declined due to insufficient fund for cash advance.

    So apparently in my case, it's code as cash advance, instead of allowing 20% of credit line limit, or does not allow (like for mortgage).

    Will check with plastiq to see why.

    • Did you ever hear anything further from Plastiq? I have the same card and was thinking of trying to pay an insurance bill. Sounds like it won't work.

    • Same thing happened to me with my Chase Marriott personal card (which worked fine with the same "online" payee, before all this Visa nonsense started). My credit limit is well over $10k but I lowered my cash advance limit to only $100 just to avoid anything posting as a cash advance. Well, they ran my $800ish payment as a cash advance and so of course Chase declined it. I'm in a back-and-forth with Plastiq to try to get to them to explain why they're claiming 20% when that's not really EVERYONE'S cash advance limit, why they're not explaining ahead of time that they're authorizing as a cash advance, and why in the world they're authorizing as a cash advance yet "promise" they'll post as a purchase. Seem might sneaky to me.

  • My vgc was denied by the issuer. I called the number on the card and was told that it is because it is coding as a wire transfer.

    • Similar. My US Bank VGC was declined and I was told that the MCC Plastiq is coding under is not permitted. Something like a money order is what the CSR said.

    • The way I read the terms of the MasterPass deal you MUST use a MC CC for the no-fee deal. Yes, you can add a Visa CC to your MasterPass account, but the payment processor would be Visa and MC will not pay the Plastiq fees when someone else (Visa) is getting the processing fees

  • You can always buy Visa gift cards with a Visa CC (when on sale e.g. Giant currently) and use them for Plastiq payments.

    • .. adding some extra cost, if you can't find one on sale before your bill is due.

  • IHG wasn’t mentioned specifically but since chase issues it, do you think it will be subject to the 20%?