Halifax Clarity credit card for holiday spending

pammy14 wrote: »

I have had clarity for years. Always use abroad. Just had to pay £27 interest from using in June. Phone them and they said even if I clear the account in full every month which I always do byDD I will be charged interest on the cash withdrawal for 2 months. I asked if I paid it off as soon as I came back from holiday would I still pay and she said yes 2 months but the interest might be less. I never knew this before, thought I would only be paying till the account was paid in full the next month.

Ignoring for the moment any purchase transactions, and assuming you just have cash withdrawals on your statement, the interest shown will be up to the statement date so if you pay off in full the next statement will still show the interest accrued between the statement date and the payment date. The thing to do there is to add a pound or two to the payment to allow for it.

What I would do is pay on return home, before the statement date, the cash advances plus a bit to cover the interest on them.

If there are purchases too, the pre-statement payment should be applied by the Halifax to cash advances first, in accordance with the payment allocation terms.

It gets potentially a bit more complicated if you have a rolling debtor balance before you start, so I would be inclined to go on holiday with a clean slate.

I like the idea of putting a credit balance on the card before the holiday, but Halifax's T&C say:

You must not pay us more than you owe when you make payments to your account, or transfer funds from another credit or store card if this creates a credit balance on your account. If there is a credit balance on your account at any time, we may apply it to any recent transactions not yet shown on your account, or to transactions made after the date your account goes into credit. We may also return any credit balance to the account from which the money has been sent or pay the funds into a deposit account you hold with us.

I'd be interest to hear about the experience of anybody who has actually tried loading a few hundred pounds on to a Clarity card before their holiday. If it triggered a money laundering alert, I imagine you could find the card locked which would be a bit inconvenient.

dalstonpaul wrote: »

This lot issued me with a new card. When I arrived in Spain they had blocked it saying there was "fraudulent activity" on my account. They were not able to restet it as I was abroad!

They left me high and dry in Spain, so I had to use a costly full-fat credit card. One can only assume they pay to get the top rating on MSE. Furious.

Is that what you believe?
I have used the Clarity for years without any hassle and barely paid any interest.

In your situation I would have used my equally excellent Revolut card and my Post Office credit card as it is always wise to have a back up that works without being "full fat"

First of all, if you read any of the posts on here (especially mine) you will know that CCs often fail overseas and that you must take backups.

I never bother to inform the CCs of my travel plans. I usually never have a problem - but if I do, I just take out another card. Even if you tell a CC in advance that you are travelling, it might be blocked anyway. Fraud prevention is a dark art.

Experience on here suggests Clarity is a good card to carry overseas and people generally don't have a problem with it. For purchases, PO Mastercard, Nationwide Select are good backups. The MSE forums are a good source of on the ground advice.

Now for the declaration, I'd like to say a big thank you to the following:
Clarity for paying me to write the above comments about their card.
PO Mastercard and Nationwide for their kind donation to me for recommending them as backups.
MSE - their generous payment for writing this post and saying kind things about their site.

It's all a conspiracy!

dalstonpaul wrote: »

This lot issued me with a new card. When I arrived in Spain they had blocked it saying there was "fraudulent activity" on my account. They were not able to restet it as I was abroad!

They left me high and dry in Spain, so I had to use a costly full-fat credit card. One can only assume they pay to get the top rating on MSE. Furious.

Sorry to hear that.
But you should have inform your bank before going away.
Also personally never rely on one card only.

Anyway, i recently reviewing my credit card and try to find alternative to Halifax Clarity after their cut of £5 reward. And here is my finding for alternative:-
Santander Zero
MBNA Everyday plus Amex
Nationwide select. Visa - for purchase

bigadaj wrote: »

Didn't think that Santander were still issuing the zero card?

I use flexplus debit card for fee fre transactions abroad, though account has a fee with other benefits.

They recently re-introduced it after their overhaul of the 123 card:
http://www.santander.co.uk/uk/credit-cards