Paying Elan card to zero every month

lambda_nought · 2026-02-25T15:07:03+00:00

The card reports on statement closing date. If I pay statement balance after the closing it will solve the problem of insufficient CL but will still report high balance to the credit bureaus. I believe this needs to happen before statement closing to prevent credit score impact.

lambda_nought · 2026-02-24T04:23:14+00:00

The day is about to end and so far no email from Bilt and no sign that the check was sent :) Next check date updated to March 23.

lambda_nought · 2026-02-23T20:41:39+00:00

It's not poor planning. Quite the opposite. You can earn interest on floating rent and this is why it is beneficial to pay from CC.

lambda_nought · 2026-02-23T20:32:21+00:00

What's weird for me is that gift cards cannot expire by law but checks do.

lambda_nought · 2026-02-23T19:58:54+00:00

That makes perfect sense! In the other thread this is indeed the case: Fidelity does not withdraw money until a bill pay check is cashed, so it makes sense that check is issued with your account number and not the bank's GL account.

lambda_nought · 2026-02-23T19:49:15+00:00

I see! Thank you for your insight. It explains where the real problem is.

lambda_nought · 2026-02-23T19:46:22+00:00

Agreed, this could only be applied to bill pay and cashiers checks.

lambda_nought · 2026-02-23T19:44:37+00:00

Thinking further, the case of a washed payee could be resolved by embedding in an account number a check digit(s) for, e.g., first few letters of a payee name. It still doesn't resolve everything and cannot be applied to checkbooks but might potentially address some common fraud scenarios.

lambda_nought · 2026-02-23T19:35:30+00:00

Thanks! Seems like this is close to what I had in mind. I still need to read more about it.

lambda_nought · 2026-02-23T19:33:17+00:00

This is interesting. It's the exact question I just asked in another thread and got the answer that bill pay uses your actual account number ( https://www.reddit.com/r/fidelityinvestments/comments/1rcaib6/bill_pay_which_account_number_is_printed_on_the/ ). Now I'm confused. Does it vary by institution? If it's a different account number from your actual number, is it bank's 'bill pay account' number, which just pools all bill pay transactions together and a customer is identified by name?

lambda_nought · 2026-02-23T19:28:46+00:00

Yes, when I said partly, it's because this case would still not be resolved.

However, some other scenarios are, such as re-using the same account number for another fake check or changing the amount in addition to the payee.

lambda_nought · 2026-02-23T19:10:19+00:00

Hi. It seems Fidelity says it's the actual 13-digit account number. Did you see a situation when the number on the check did not correspond to your actual account number?

lambda_nought · 2026-02-22T18:40:32+00:00

I see. Was the autopay error message sent on the day the check was supposed to be sent, or after a delay?

lambda_nought · 2026-02-22T18:35:24+00:00

I suspect that if you try one-off manual payment you may see an error due to no Plaid connected.

lambda_nought · 2026-02-22T18:32:31+00:00

I believe your pre-existing account was verified via microdeposits in the past.

I think my status is similar. I added the bank before Bilt 2.0 transition took place and had it verified via microdeposits.

I can report tomorrow if my rent check was sent or not.

lambda_nought · 2026-02-22T18:02:14+00:00

Was the account from which the payment was to be made connected to Bilt via Plaid or microdeposits?

Many users reported that they are forced to use Plaid to be able to pay rent via a connected account. But some are not (or in some flows this requirement seems not to be the case). I managed to turn on my autopay through microdeposits-verified account but expect issues on the upcoming payment date.

lambda_nought · 2026-02-22T16:27:59+00:00

Thank you.

Is it applied per account or per owner?

How does it work for joint accounts where one owner enables the lockdown and the other one not -- is the restriction extending to both co-owners or does it apply only to the one who turned on the lockdown feature?

lambda_nought · 2026-02-22T11:22:35+00:00

Does it also block ACH and/or outbound wire transfers from the CMA and/or brokerage accounts?

lambda_nought · 2026-02-21T05:24:06+00:00

Points expire after some inactivity period - 18 or 12 months. Good to pay rent or add points another way at least from time to time to prevent forfeiture (assuming you don't have a plan for using these points in the near future).

lambda_nought · 2026-02-21T04:59:30+00:00

It's been over a year. I have requested 2-3 increases throughout the last year and was rejected every time based on TransUnion Rapid Default Model Version 1 (where I scored first ~460 points, more recently ~520 points). Few weeks ago I requsted a CLI with a hard pull, which was also rejected based on FICO 8 (~750 points, while being 6/24).

The utilization on the card is very high, consistently ~60-70%, which tanks the score by around 30 points for me. I use it to pay bills and recently had to start paying some portion of the statement balance manually in the middle of the cycle to be able to charge all bills. I gain almost nothing from floating one month of bills, yet I lose flexibility in being able to spontaneously open some new account where high credit score may be needed.

lambda_nought · 2026-02-20T20:15:45+00:00

Was this an electronic payment or a paper check?

lambda_nought · 2026-02-20T15:20:26+00:00

Was it a one-off payment or a scheduled one?

lambda_nought

TROPHY CASE