My experience paying rent with my Coinbase Card

I like earning cash back from my cards. I like crypto. But unfortunately, my biggest expenses don't allow me to pay with my rewards producing cards since they are credit cards and not debit. When I found out I can earn crypto rewards from a debit card from Coinbase, I decided I wanted to experiment and pay rent and other monthly bills with it. Here's my experience so far:

Setting up

It had me choose what asset I wanted to pay with. With USDC there are no fees while everything else has about a 2.5% fee. So, I obviously chose USDC. I load up on enough USDC to cover me for all my bills.

Then it had me choose what asset I wanted to earn rewards in. The choices it gives me are XLM, GRT, BTC, ETH, and DOGE. For XLM and GRT both earn 4% while the rest only earn 1% in rewards. I chose XLM.

Reward options

Even before ever receiving the physical card, I given the card number and all the needed details. I was ready to start paying!

Paying internet/phone/utilities

I first paid the bill for my internet provider. This was fairly painless. Within about a minute, I could see the charge on the Coinbase page show "Pending" (eventually "Completed"). Success!

Internet

I then want on my cell phone provider. Hit a snag here: when I added the card as a new payment method I see "Declined" on the Coinbase Card page (all before I even attempt to pay). The cell company site says I can use the card, but I'd lose a $20/month promotion if I used the card to pay. Since the rewards I would get are less than $20 I decided not to pay this one with the card.

Declined cell

I then setup payment for a few utilities with the card. All worked!

Paying rent

I went to the payment portal for me to pay rent. I added the Coinbase Card as a new payment method. It warned me there was a debit card fee of about $8. Well, $8 is quite a bit lower than 4% of my rent so it should be totally worth it (I normally pay with an e-check).

I then go to pay rent. Immediately it tells me it fails. I check Coinbase and it tells me that it fails because of "Expiration Mismatch." I go back, remove the card as a payment method, and re-enter everything and double check that I put in the correct expiration date. I try to pay again: failed. Since I knew the expiration date was correct, I decided to submit a support ticket.

Since I knew support would probably take a long time, I checked out the FAQ. I found that there is a total daily limit of $2,500. I realized that the amount previously paid + rent was over this limit (yes, it's expensive as shit where I live). So, I decided to try paying less (an amount that would keep me under the daily limit). Success! The next day, I paid the remainder and it appears to have worked as well!

Paying rent

Surprisingly, the support actually got back to me in about 5 hours. And they told me what I expected: I went over the limit.

Closing thoughts

After doing this, I think I will continue to pay my bills this way. Imagine if your monthly bills totaled $2k then annually you'd get $80/month ($960 a year) in "free" crypto. Seems worth it for me.

Some things I wish:

• Coinbase allows me to setup weekly or monthly deposits of USDC, which is great. But, I can only set it up to deposit $X today and for every interval. I can't, for example, set it up so that on the 1st of every month I deposit $X... unless today is currently the 1st of the month. Also, I get paid every 2 weeks and I'd prefer to have the ability to deposit every 4 weeks (as opposed to monthly) to align with my paychecks
• I wish there were more options for the assets I can earn rewards in (maybe ADA?). And I'd especially want more that earn more than 1%.

Overall: a good experience!