Has anyone been able to pay for their mini with a credit card. I have the cash, but would like to pay for the mini with the card to accrue the mileage on the card.

What has been your experience?

 

I'd just ask the dealer.

A while back I tried to purchase my old Scion on my CC. I was told I could only put like 3k on the card. This was in CA. A lot of dealers apparently do this. They set arbitrary amounts so they don't have to pay the transaction fee and/or get you to use their financing.

 

Yep, I was only able to put $5K on my card and wrote a check for the rest, the seller is charged a percentage by the credit card company so obviously that comes out of the seller's profit.

You're better off using a card with cash back instead of getting miles. 1% cash back reduced my effective cost by $50.

 

I tried to pay with CC too (for the cash back). MINI dealer only let me put $1000 on a credit card. Bummer.

 

I just put a 10k deposit on my Paceman...that will add to the 80000 points I will use toward the purchase price.

 

I bought my wife's 2010 KIA Sportage with credit cards. My MINI dealer accepted my down payment on CC but not the rest.

 

I did not buy a mini but a used Corvette on my credit card and paid it off in couple of months.

 

Our dealer would only let us put $15k on the card, we gave them a check for the rest. Though now I've discovered that my card has acquired a $7.5k "large item" limit. Nothing above that will go through unless I tell them about it first. It would have been nice if they'd told me about that. I tried paying another $15k for last years, but it was declined so I just wrote a check.

 

I considered the same transaction. But it does not work. The dealership can limit the amount which was $3,500 at my dealer-remember there is a fee the dealership needs to pay on every charge so less profit for them and the dealership earns a fee on their financing. The credit card company will typically allow it (in fact that want you to do charge more!) but there is the limit on how the credit card company records it. I thought I could use one of those credit card zero percent offers for a year. However, after reading the fine print and chatting with the card company any large payment to a car dealership (technically it is to a finance company--like Mini Finance) above a certain dollar amount triggers a "balance transfer/cash advance" which adds the greater of a min fee or an additional to the charge of 3.00%. PLUS I would earn NO points if it was considered a balance transfer/ cash advance! I opted not to do it.

 

Back in the day I used to have people try to do this all the time, the only way I would let them is if they paid the 4% charge we were going to get hit with, and then I had to run the charge as automobile repairs and parts, or the finance company (usually AMEX) would not allow it. They also had to speak to the customer on the phone to authorize it.

Although, late one Sunday night I did have a Mexican national buy a $60K Porsche on his AMEX Black card - it took him about 1 hour on the phone with AMEX in Mexico city to get it approved tho! I'm sure things have changed now, as this was in the mid 80's....

I wonder why they limit you tho, since they seem to want to give huge limits on cards these days, one of mine has a $50K limit! What in the hell do I need a $50K limit on a credit card for? I've never had more than a few thousand on one, and that was only because I was using it for travel.

 

I found a $30k limit to be very handy when remodeling the house. I could hold onto the cash a month or two longer (in the days when you could still get decent interest). In fact the $15k for the MINI coincided with a remodeling payment, which stretched the card a bit. My credit union will give me a $50k limit, but that's total and I have two cards from them.

 

I have not done this and don't plan to. But could you buy a new MINI on Ebay (this assumes they have one you want) and pay for it with your paypal, which you have
connected to your credit card?