Cheap Travel Money Discussion Area

Baldur

Why post the same question twice?

I've already answered it HERE

malc_b

isayhello wrote: »

If you have a dd setup, how can you make an online payment earlier to clear the balance?

Lets say your credit card bill is currently £300 for this month and you have a dd due in a few weeks to collect £400 from your previous month.

Do you need to pay £700 now to clear the old balance and the new transactions? will a further £400 still be taken out when its time for the dd to be collected as well, so you're £400 in credit now?

If you read the back of the Clarity statement it tells you the order of payments which is from highest interest rate to lowest. Cash advances come top so any payment before DD should clear the cash advance. But as I said Halifax got this wrong for me so I'd check their figures. The change to pay off highest interest rate is new(ish) and was forced on the CC companies.

Note that as the DD is set to the last statement this does mean that if you have say 400 on last statement and then take 100 in cash after that date then you actually (in theory) only pay off 300 of your statement with 100 paying off the cash advance. So you have interest to pay on 100 of purchases next month. But as the interest rates are all the same (on my statement at least) it doesn't make a difference.

Lugh_Chronain

Incidentally, Metro Bank are opening branches in the following areas sometime this year:

Bromley
Croydon
Uxbridge
Hounslow
Orpington
Watford
&
Ealing

alan_p_brown

@Tarostar: You are not allowed to preload the card with credit, The Clarity conditions say that they will return any payment that puts the card in credit (I cannot confirm whether or not this actually happens). Note however, I have managed to preload the card accidentally, see below.

@isayhello: I found this by accident some time ago on a previous Halifax card. When I took out the Clarity, Halifax confirmed the way they do Direct Debits. This method differs from my experience with some other cards, but Halifax only do one calculation run; when they prepare your statement, they work out your payment amount. They do not recalculate when they implement your direct debit. Hence if your DD is set to pay in full, but between statement and payment date you make a payment, then when they still take the stated payment and your account will end up pre-loaded.
In your case, if the £700 is paid in between the statement date and the payment date, they will still take the £400 that they calculated and your account will end up with a £400 credit.
In my case, the sums involved have always been smaller (less than £100), but because I don't use the card every month, the credit has sat there for several months.

My only recent real-life example with Halifax Clarity is 18-March. Withdrew 50 euro cash, quoted rate was 1.14 (same as a card purchase the same day). Cleared the full balance on the 24th. Statement showed a £0.06 interest charge. As far as I can remember, the 1.14 beat the Travelex pre-order rate at the time, to which Barclays would have added a 2% debit card cash advance charge.

yellowfolder

Hello
I'm going to Italy for four weeks in a few weeks time and was thinking of getting a Halifax clarity since it looks like the best option after reading the article on this site. I will need spending cash too, so would it be better to withdraw this from the credit card once in Italy, or take travelers cheques from the UK (in order to avoid the interest charges)?

Thanks

adindas

Withdraw cash from Bank cash machine once you are in Italy, almost every international airport has cash machine.

Nowadays, people really do not need travelers cheque for international traveling. travelers cheque is things in the past.

A little cash in foreign currency might be helpful but not a must. But you need also back up say another debit card, just in case there is a problem with the card, etc.

yellowfolder wrote: »

Hello
I'm going to Italy for four weeks in a few weeks time and was thinking of getting a Halifax clarity since it looks like the best option after reading the article on this site. I will need spending cash too, so would it be better to withdraw this from the credit card once in Italy, or take travelers cheques from the UK (in order to avoid the interest charges)?

Thanks

yellowfolder

adindas wrote: »

Withdraw cash from Bank cash machine once you are in Italy, almost every international airport has cash machine.

Nowadays, people really do not need travelers cheque for international traveling. travelers cheque is things in the past.

A little cash in foreign currency might be helpful but not a must. But you need also back up say another debit card, just in case there is a problem with the card, etc.

Ok thanks. I'll probably need to set up a new debit card then because at the moment I have one of the "forbidden" ones?

Biggles

yellowfolder wrote: »

I'll probably need to set up a new debit card then because at the moment I have one of the "forbidden" ones?

If you have time between now and going. Or just use another credit card, they are usually better than the most of the 'bad' debit cards. But I wouldn't worry too much, it's just insurance against the Halifax card not working, which it will, you won't be planning to use your spare card.

adindas

As previously mentioned by Biggle this is just for a back up to give the traveler a piece of mind if something goes wrong with the "Halifax Clarity Card" such the card get blocked, damage,stolen, etc. It is highly likely you will not need to use it

If you have a luxury of choosing the "back up" credit/debit card then avoid using these cards for overseas spending .
It has been listed as the cards from hell which need to be avoided.:

Halifax Debit Card
Spending penalty: £1.50. Load fee: 2.75%. Cash withdrawal fee: £1.50
Lloyds Debit Card
Spending penalty: £1. Load fee: 2.99%. Cash withdrawal: 1.5% min £2 max £4.50
IF Debit Card
Spending penalty: £1.50 Load fee: 2.25%. Cash withdrawal fee: £1.50 or 1.5%
RBS Debit Card
Spending penalty: £1.25. Load fee: 2.75%. Cash withdrawal: 2% min £2 max £5
NatWest Debit Card
Spending penalty: £1.25. Load fee: 2.75%. Cash withdrawal: 2% min £2 max £5
Santander Debit Card
Spending penalty: £1.25. Load fee: 2.75%. Cash withdrawal: 1.5% min £1.99
Full list of charges for major UK credit and debit cards.


http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-travel-money

yellowfolder wrote: »

Ok thanks. I'll probably need to set up a new debit card then because at the moment I have one of the "forbidden" ones?

luci

Just make sure you call the Halifax to complete a "holiday form" before you go. You can advise them up to a year in advance.

I have just used the Clarity card extensively in the US for both purchases and cash withdrawals with no problems.