Paying for car with credit card

mat_H_2

Hi,
I need some advice. I would like to trade my old car in, in January with the scrappage scheme. The hyundai dealer does not take credit cards but will take debit cards.
I need £5000 to go towards the £2000 scrappage allowance. Can I apply for a credit card then pay a cheque into a bank and use the debit card to pay the dealer. Is this the easiest way.
I will be able to pay off the 5000 pounds in September when I get my assurance lump sum.
COuld anyone recommend the best card for this at the moment please???

Thank you for any advice.

Mat

housebuyer_abc

mat_H wrote: »

Hi,
I need some advice. I would like to trade my old car in, in January with the scrappage scheme. The hyundai dealer does not take credit cards but will take debit cards.
I need £5000 to go towards the £2000 scrappage allowance. Can I apply for a credit card then pay a cheque into a bank and use the debit card to pay the dealer. Is this the easiest way.
I will be able to pay off the 5000 pounds in September when I get my assurance lump sum.
COuld anyone recommend the best card for this at the moment please???

Thank you for any advice.

Mat

You can do this a number of ways:

1) Get a credit card and then ask for a credit card cheque (but check the APR it almost certainly won't be zero %), pay this to either yourself or the garage (remember to leave time for it to clear)

2) Get a card such as MBNA that does transfers to current accounts (although they charge 4% for this)

3) Go back to the garage - most of them will do a credit card payment for a 2.5% surcharge which may in all honesty be cheaper than the cheques or balance transfers

4) Go back to the garage and tell them they either accept the credit card with no charges or you walk - I've done this and they grudingly have in the past.

Every garage that accepts debit cards accepts credit cards, its just they want to pass the handling charge onto you

mat_H_2

These are all possible ways I ike the 2.5% paid with the card a the garage myself as it is simple.
I will call them tomorrow.

Thanks
Mat

YorkshireBoy

Assuming the M&S card features don't change between now and January, you could go the Sterling travellers cheque route.

This will get you 10 months 0% on cash into your current account for only a 1% fee (a saving of £150 on the MBNA option with the 4% fee).

Might be tight with your September deadline though, as you'd need to apply in December?

gwapenut

I did exactly this, put 12k on my mbna card.

All garages were willing to do this so long as I covered their costs, their fees ranged from 2% to 2.5%. But in the end the card fees became a negotiating point - after haggling a healthy discount on the cost of the car - and I incurred just 1% for 9 months interest free.


But then MBNA were doing a double points promotion and I got 1% back in high street vouchers - so it cost me nothing

Also - dealers tend to let you put deposits down on credit cards without asking for the fees to be covered. So go for as high a deposit as possible (if there's no downside to a high deposit, ie if you're certain you will be taking the car). Typically they allow you to put down between 500 and 1000 pounds.