Why Use Credit Cards?

storminbalder

Loopy_Girl wrote: »

Not really. The deposit can take a few days to get back into your bank account if you do it through your debit card. Which if, like in your case you were only left with £3, could leave you in a spot. How are you meant to fill up the car/van whatever with fuel to replace if you have no money in your bank account. With a credit card it just means the deposit is taken off your available credit balance for a few days.

I used money.:rotfl:

Babu

storminbalder wrote: »

Yes I see what you are saying. But, I am saying that you can hire a car quite easily with a debit card. This is something that is not stated many times on here. In fact there have been many posts claiming it to be near impossible to rent a car without a credit card.

I agree that yes you would need the deposit either available in your bank account or as available credit on your credit card. To be quite honest, that's the same difference to me, or at least pure semantics.

The difference that I see is that if you had less than £130 in your bank account you would have problems with hiring a car. Now, you may have more than £30 for the hire but you don't have the £100 for the deposit. In this instance you would be better off in using a credit card - you can clearly afford the hire charge and you would be able to settle this upon receipt of your credit card statement.

Provided you return the car you will not even be made aware of the extra deposit on your credit card statement.

Loopy_Girl

Fair enough. But if you read your post back you say you only had £133.00 in your account - which would make my example a reasonable one as the assumption was that all your money was in your account.

Babu

storminbalder wrote: »

I used money.:rotfl:

OK, so you prefer to use cash. Glad that we have sorted it.

jasonwatkins

PROLIANT wrote: »

..Because you might get shot, stabbed, blown-up, knocked down by a bus etc...Then you never got to enjoy your play station, life is for living and enjoying, not marshal-discipline.

Fair enough, but it just really reinforces the sentiment of the OP.

storminbalder

NickX wrote: »

Very Well put LoopyGirl.

Why allow the funds to leave your Bank Account, even if only for a temporary period, when you could simply use "available credit" which should not have any financial implications for your day to day expenditure.

I know that storminbalder and littleowl will not agree, but there really are a lot of advantages with using a Credit Card rather than a Debit Card.

Maybe you are correct. Maybe they do have uses. But I don't think they should be blindly encouraged. As I have said before, some people on here seem to not only encourage applying for and using them, but actually glamourise their use. That I really do take exception to and that is where the real danger lies.

All I am trying to say is that, it is really easy to do without them, even for hotel and car rental purposes, despite what others would have you believe.

I myself was hoodwinked for a while, by people on here, that it was difficult to hire a car without a credit card. And I am not normally someone easily fooled!

Loopy_Girl

At the end of the day it is personal choice.

We live in a 'buy now, pay later' society and it is up to each individual if they want to particpate in this or save up for things and take the motto 'never a borrower nor lender be'.

No one person is incorrect and those choosing to use credit should not be looked upon with disdain. If you don't want a credit card then great, but don't berate others who do.

YorkshireBoy

storminbalder wrote: »

I myself was hoodwinked for a while, by people on here, that it was difficult to hire a car without a credit card.

Maybe the threads you saw related to car hire abroad, where it is nigh on impossible to pay with anything but a credit card?

storminbalder

Loopy_Girl wrote: »

At the end of the day it is personal choice.

We live in a 'buy now, pay later' society and it is up to each individual if they want to particpate in this or save up for things and take the motto 'never a borrower nor lender be'.

No one person is incorrect and those choosing to use credit should not be looked upon with disdain. If you don't want a credit card then great, but don't berate others who do.

I certainly don't look upon anyone disapprovingly. I just want people to be able to make their own informed judgement. I, quite frankly, was a mite annoyed at being misled about the car hire issue for so long and feel that it should be publicised that a credit card is far from necessary.

I agree with your comments most heartedly, most intelligently put.

jasonwatkins

Loopy_Girl wrote: »

At the end of the day it is personal choice.

We live in a 'buy now, pay later' society and it is up to each individual if they want to particpate in this or save up for things and take the motto 'never a borrower nor lender be'.

No one person is incorrect and those choosing to use credit should not be looked upon with disdain. If you don't want a credit card then great, but don't berate others who do.

Your post kind of gets the original sentiment of the original post, but then sort of misunderstands it.

Yes, we do live in a 'buy now, pay later' society, but littleowl's point was that we never used to, and he believes, as do i, that the credit culture is not a good thing and is largely fed by people who want to 'buy now, pay later'.

In some respects, this thread has provided a microcosm of society in general - the credit culture is so deeply entrenched into our current generation that people take it as a personal slight on their character if you dare to question it even as a national issue/problem - no personal attacks even necessary.