Santander Zero vs Halifax Clarity

pubwebmaster

Thanks chattychappy. The arrangement I'm referring to is, "If you always pay your bill in full, there will be no interest charged on purchases". As someone who never uses extended credit, by always paying bill in full, I was misled that I would nevertheless be charged interest.

torrenter

Very interesting ChattyChappy, I was always under the impression that the grace period was as you say it's not. E.g 56 days. Then start paying interest from the 57th day. I wonder if you could give me an example of what kind of interest I'd be paying in the following situation. It would help me understand a lot better.

You see I'm keen to apply for the Halifax Clarity CC next month and am really hoping I get the rate of 12.9% APR. But although they've told me over the phone that I "shouldn't" have a problem getting the rate as I've a Credit Score that is bordering on Excellent (I predict/guess my Experian score by the time of application to be 960+) and my Credit Availability is Low (£500 limit on HSBC Mastercard), it seems that they do turn a few Excellent Candidates away, or at least give them a higher 17.9% or 21.9% rate.

Anyway, here's the potential situation.

£1,000 limit and DD set up for Minimum Repayments

Day 1 - £500 Purchase
Day 6 - £450 Online Payment to Halifax Clarity CC from Current Account
Day 10 - £450 Payment to Card clears (via BACS) - I've read here that the Clarity doesn't except FPs, that right?
Day 56 - £50 still in Debit
Day 57 - How much interest do I owe?

Your help here would be appreciated.
Thanks.

chattychappy

torrenter wrote: »

I was always under the impression that the grace period was as you say it's not. E.g 56 days. Then start paying interest from the 57th day.

Usually they say something like "up to 56 days". This is because it works by statement cycles. Eg if your statements are dated on the 1st and the due by date is the 26th, then:

Buy something on the 2nd Jan
Appears on statement dated 1st Feb
Pay full balance on the due date = 26th Feb, therefore no interest

So credit = 56 days

But if you bought something on 1st Jan, then it would appear on the statement dated that day, so you could only get 25 days.

I don't have Clarity, but most cards work this way. I don't know if they take faster payments.

torrenter wrote: »

£1,000 limit and DD set up for Minimum Repayments

Day 1 - £500 Purchase
Day 6 - £450 Online Payment to Halifax Clarity CC from Current Account
Day 10 - £450 Payment to Card clears (via BACS) - I've read here that the Clarity doesn't except FPs, that right?
Day 56 - £50 still in Debit
Day 57 - How much interest do I owe?

In this case, you haven't cleared the full balance. So there would be no interest free period. You would pay:

Interest on £500 from Day 1 to Day 9
Interest on £50 from Day 10 onwards.

Don't bother with Experian credit scores - they are pretty meaningless and aren't seen by anyone except you.

jonthedog

A very old thread, I know, but thought I'd mention that I've been using the clarity card for several months now and it doesn't seem to be an issue to 'pre-load' the card with a transfer before you go abroad. I think that it is technically against their T&Cs, but so far, I've had no problems and no interest on my foreign cash withdrawals as I was in credit. To stay within the T&Cs you could make the payment just before you go and it won't have cleared before you make the first withdrawal from the airport cash machine, so you will only pay a few days interest at most...far better that waiting for the statement or the direct debit to come out.

Mikhail

eagleeye wrote: »

the halifax clarity gives the best exchange rate.i have used both santander and halifax on same day & time to find out the exchange rate.The rates which i recvd are as follows
10/9/10
halifax 1gbp= 71.08 INR
Santander 1 GBP-70.80 INR
Oanda rate -71.67 INR
Mastercard rate - 71.08 INR
11/09/10 Halifax - 1GBP-71.13

13/09/10 Halifax-1GBP-71.47
Mastercard-71.47

I also found the Halifax exchange rate slightly better than that of Santander or maybe, of course, I use the Santander card only at the 'wrong' time, but 100% of all my transactions on Halifax have a better exchange rate than Santander! In addition, Halifax gave me a credit limit 4 times higher than Santander.