Here we go.
Shortly we shall learn how high Alliant has raised our pathetic savings account interest rate.
They need to do something big this time!
Any guesses?
Don’t get your hopes up. I expect them to track Ally - so a small bump come September 1.
I’ve really got to get the rest of my cash out of Alliant.
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I’m guessing we still won’t break 2%. The big boys are still below - Ally 1.85%, Amex 1.75%, Discover 1.70%, Marcus(Goldman Sachs) 1.70%. We’ll probably be lucky to get 1.85%. Hope I’m wrong!!
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New rate 1.70% - 
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Big whoop!!!
Boy. That is just pathetic.
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Ally just hit 2%. This includes the MMA with free checks by the way.
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Oh, dear!!
Hang onto your hat. Alliant is making another “improvement”, this time to a perfectly well functioning bill payer service.
It’s exactly what they think we need, while being precisely something that nobody has requested.
Groan
Hey you Alliant geniuses:
Want to make a genuine improvement?
How about increasing the allowed number of linked accounts!!
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I saw this as well. Read the terms and conditions because there will be some impactful changes.
The big one that caught my eye:
Bill Pay Processing Timelines
You may schedule Bill Pays any time the service is available. Processing begins at 7 p.m. Central Time on Monday through Friday. The earliest possible Send Date and Deliver Date will be displayed in the ‘Pay A Bill’ screen for each payee. For recurring electronic payments, if the Deliver Date would fall on a Saturday or Sunday, the Deliver Date will be the business day preceding that Saturday or Sunday or federal holiday (ex: for a Deliver Date that would fall on Sunday June 26th, the Deliver Date will be Friday, June 24th). You will receive notification of when the payment will be delivered 5 days prior to the date that the payment is scheduled to be delivered
So two big things - the cutoff is no longer 10pm CT, it’s 7pm CT. I loved the 10pm cutoff as it let me do my banking after work in the pacific time zone.
Second, the vaunted Sunday payment/Monday delivery seems to be a thing of the past. This was a HUGE advantage for Alliant.
Someone mentioned, maybe here, that they noticed Alliant bill pay checks were coming from South Dakota. That information, in conjunction with this data, suggests their new vendor is Fiserv’s CheckFree system. I use it with Fidelity. It’s fine, very reliable, and there’s no issues with having a half-assed directory of billers that “transform” from being paid by paper check to electronic delivery after the first payment. However, it’s definitely less flexible deadline-wise than Wescom’s system that Alliant currently uses.
If Alliant keeps shooting themselves in the foot, they’re liable not to have any feet remaining.
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I use it to pay three categories of things:
- My mortgage. I make this payment on the first of every month, which gives me the entire grace period to sort out any issues (I’ve yet to have any). I don’t trust my mortgage company to make this withdrawal reliably, especially after the debacle with Mr. Cooper where they erroneously took too much money out of their clients’ accounts.
- My credit card bills. Paying with a bill payer service allow me to follow Argyll’s (your) rule - at least through my issuers, I can’t pay more than the current balance. With a bill pay service, I can pay whatever I want. That means I can pay off charges that are ‘pending’ but will post with the statement.
- Utility bills that do not accept credit cards. My water district is the only one in this category. I don’t trust the rinky-dink district, which takes 10 days to post an EFT payment, with my bank account details. Would much rather push a payment with bill pay as opposed to giving them my account number.
I’ve been primarily using Fidelity as that is where most of my cash is, but Alliant has been a nice backup to have when I want to send payments on Sunday nights or if I forget to push something by Fidelity’s 4pm PT cutoff to beat a credit card statement close date. Now, Alliant offers little advantage over Fido’s.
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USBank gives 5% with Cash+ card on utilities. use as credit or a deposit to a USBank acct
My utility does not take credit cards. But I have community solar for the electric power portion which does take a credit card.
Thanks for the tip. I don’t think I spend enough in those categories for it to be worthwhile.
My main cards are Alliant (2.5%) and Amex Preferred (6% groceries, 3% gas and transit). When I hit the max $6K for groceries, I use NFCU Amex (3% groceries, restaurants, gas and transit).
How do you pay your credit cards? Did you set them to take the full payment from your checking or savings account on the due date? How do you ensure there’s enough money in that account to pay for all the auto debits?
I find this method more error-prone. You could have one biller accidentally take out too much and you’ll get hit with a dozen overdrafts before you know it. Also as already mentioned above, it doesn’t work for those of us who pre-pay credit cards to show low or zero statement balances.
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I pay the credit cards from my savings account. I normally pay off the balance prior to the statement date, thus showing a low or zero balance for the credit bureau. There is no automatic payment to the credit cards. I have never had automatic payments to credit cards.
Alliant and Amex allow me to pay the CC bills from the savings account. NFCU requires payment to be from a checking account.
I’ve been doing this for over a decade and never had a problem.
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Great, so instead of logging in to one billpay website to pay three bills, you have to logon to three websites. I’d have to logon to… 8, sometimes more.
That’s a pretty good reason to use billpay.
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I find it very useful to log onto the websites, see the charges, rewards, offers and bonuses. I have to go to each website for the rewards every month.
I would never pay a credit card bill without checking charges. Hence, no auto payments.
There are many bonus offers from Amex Rewards and special deals from NFCU.
This month I should be getting an extra $150 in rewards from Amex from a bonus offer. I am happy to go to the website, see the charges, see the rewards, apply the rewards, and then pay the bill. I recently learned of the NFCU 3% CD by going to the website.
Yeah, you’re right, I keep track of balances and download the statements too, so I logon to all the websites anyway. And I used to pay them same as you. But then I started using billpay for things that don’t take CC or charge high fees. Then I added all the CCs to billpay so it’s all in one place for simplicity.
The only other advantage I can think of is that when prepaying, the CC sites often don’t allow paying more than the current balance, while the billpay site doesn’t know or care about the balance (I do not use e-Bills). So if I’m doing my “banking” tonight, I could schedule the full amount right away with billpay. Otherwise I’d have to wait another day or two (in mental agony 
) until the pending charges post and do my “banking” again by paying them on the CC site.
I used to do this, but I caved and just have all the billers pull so that its just automated. There was one card that I forgot to check when I was manually using Alliant bill pay and I got hit with a late fee. The majority of my cards are at Bank of America, so I don’t see too much risk of insufficient balance as I only need to check one website. I think there are other banks/CUs that let you set up eBills where the biller send your bank an ebill and they auto pull the statement balance, but not sure if that really masks your account info from the biller and I’m lazy to switch everything. BTW, evidently PayPal will let you pay some bills by credit card that don’t otherwise accept it: [Using PayPal to pay bills and earn 5% on credit cards] - Bogleheads.org
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I am also not excited about the bill change. Seems like something they could easily screw up!
Current system works for me.
I am also not crazy about taking the money when the check / payment arrives / is cashed. I am sure many people like that though. I like the current method - once it sends, the money is debited. Easier for me to ‘balance the checkbook’.
Oh well, times are changing at Alliant… Guess we’ll see if too much or too much bad occurs over the next months and years. I would hate to switch to another bank/CU as primary but will if I have to.
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Wow. Learn something new every day. Didn’t realize it was free. Must note that anything it identifies as a “credit card” (such as actual credit cards or mortgages) on the list of payee search results can only be paid by bank account or maybe debit card, not CC. Utilities can be paid by CC. My biggest bills are property taxes, and there are a few posts on the thread that make me think it should work by CC without a fee. That would be nice. Especially if PP is a 5% category in Q4.
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It may depend on your county. I pay my Santa Clara County California property tax with a credit card. I do not recall whether they charge a fee. In any case, I use a Bank of America premium rewards card that rebates 2.625% and my recollection is that I make money on it after the fee.