FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

> I believe they also offer a "stop allowing charges by this merchant" feature

If they have this it's another reason to use them for automatic billing. I have tried to do this with a VISA card and they said they cannot do it; the only way to prevent future charges would be to close that account entirely and even then I might still get billed for some period of time.

American Express is a very special card that typically comes with annual fee that is very much worth it. I would never book any hotels, buy plane tickets or signup in any form of membership with any other card because I got burnt way too many times with Visa and MC is even worse. Also that's why businesses typically do not like AE because how easy it is to dispute the charge.

But to add - I discourage you from using chargeback as a feature to stop future charges. Most banks will report it to your credit bureau - you won't see it in form of points being withheld BUT it might be adverse for you when you try to get a loan, etc. My mother disputed way too many things (memory troubles at her age) and they did not renew her CC after expiration date and MasterCard told her she is not eligible for card with her excessive CB ratio.

I use one of those banks that allows me to generate sub-accounts easily, each of which has an account number for e-checks and Debit card number. So I can use that for subscriptions, either fund it once, or fund it regularly via automated transfers from my main balance, or you can set it up to just automatically pull from your main account. Then when you're done with it, you can close that sub-account. It's worked very well for these sorts of subscriptions.

Specifically, I'm using Qube, but at this point I'm looking to move away from them and do not at all recommend them.

Check out Privacy.com for card generation. You can set monthly/yearly/all-limits, pause and cancel cards, create single-use cards, etc. And their virtual cards accept any billing information. As a result I don’t bother unsubscribing directly anymore and instead just pause the card. Less hassle. More control.

I’m also using Qube and looking to get away but I really like having the sub-accounts. What have you found? Envelope seems to have really nice features but lacks the sub-accounts.

> Most banks will report it to your credit bureau - you won't see it in form of points being withheld BUT it might be adverse for you when you try to get a loan, etc

I never knew this! I have heard about companies banning you if you request a CB, which would be really bad for things like Google, Uber, etc.

I usually end up having to dispute a charge only once a year or so. It has surprised me over the past few years how lacking AMEX seems to be in its "investigation". It at least used to take a few days and they'd sometimes ask for documentation. The last one I did got turned around in maybe an hour.

Privacy.com has been increasing neutering their free tier and you cant fund with a credit card, their cards have reputation problems at merchants. They're one if the problems imho if we're talking about what's being sold if different than what's being bought.