American Express can be used to pay O&R bill

PEARL RIVER, N.Y. — Orange & Rockland Utilities now accepts American Express (AMEX) to the list of credit cards that can be used to pay monthly utility bills.

AMEX joins VISA, MasterCard and the Discover credit cards as acceptable forms of payment for O&R bills. In addition, O&R will now be accepting major debit cards such as Pulse and Accel along with Star and NYSE, which are accepted now.

Pike County Light & Power Co. (PCL&P) is an O&R subsidiary.

With the upgrade comes a change in the convenience fee charged on these transactions. The new charge is $4.75 per transaction, regardless of the size of the payment.

That differs from the previous tiered payment schedule. Under that program, the customer was charged a convenience fee for every $600 increment.

The new fee will be the same rate for residential customers and commercial customers.