Be prepared to be EXTREMELY proactive if you think you're going to get all the money back that you put into your Flex Spending Account. As you get to the end of the year, if a charge is over what's left,(on the credit card they give you), the charge will bounce. So you'll need to charge the EXACT amount (we'll see if that works).
I write this as I'm on the line with "customer service" to find out if I'll be issued a new charge card for the following year. I've already punched about 5 phone tree options, one of the options doesn't clarify itself until you've failed three times, I've heard about 5 recordings, and now I'm at the ominous "silence" after which I anticipate getting hung up on - bingo. In the time it took me to write that, I heard a click and lost connection.
Second call, I reach the a raspy-voice sounds like heavy smoker who won't help me unless I provide my account number or social security number. The account number is on paperwork they sent a year ago, NOT on the credit card they issue. I don't want to endure hold again to dig through my old paperwork, so I give my social security number and complete information she needs to set up a false identity.
She informs me that even though the credit card they issue says it expires end of month, it's actually worthless and I have to submit a MANUAL claim for the end of year expenses (which I actually have until March to make). This entire interaction makes my head hurt, and realize that the amount of "tax savings" involved in these pre-tax "benefits" is not enough to pay for the time spent trying to straighten out the accounts involved.
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With our plan, you have a few months in the new year to use your plan. The company processing them gets inundated at the end of the year, so it takes longer to process claims. At the end of my first year, I was really wondering what was going to happen - do the charges go through or am I losing money on this racket? Finally, everything went through. Lesson learned. Try to burn through the funds earlier in the year if you're concerned about whether they're going to get processed end of year.
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