Which is worst: Santander Zero or Post Office Mastercard

choc_mouse

I've got five credit cards with about £25k credit but only use about 10% each month on average.

I use my Nationwide Cash Reward and Lloyds TSB Airmiles Duo cards for UK spending.

Then I have these cards for international use:
1) Santander Zero
2) Post Office Mastercard
3) Halifax Reward Clarity

I'm trying to decide which cards to get rid of. Nationwide and Airmiles give rewards, so I'll keep those. Halifax seems the best deal for using abroad but I also want to keep another card for backup.

A) PO - rubbish internet banking.
Santander - rubbish customer service.

Which card would you choose?

Curt.

Both...(wasn't listed as an option above). Both are garbage and not worth having. And you have 2 other good cards anyway and it'll reduce your available lending and ability to obtain further credit.

chattychappy

I would keep both, but if I had to ditch one then I'd ditch PO.

Both offer 0% foreign loadings, but out of the two only Zero offers fee-free cash withdrawals.

Clarity is new.. perhaps the deal will change in the future. It may be that they offer you some stonking BT deal and you max it out so wish to put foreign spend elsewhere. Besides overseas it's always good to have backup card, as you say, as card blocking/refusals can happen without warning.

BTW I've always found Zero customer services brilliant. And I have had need to call them. Goes against the grain, I know. But there you have it!

OH and another reason for Zero. After it went dormant I got a 12 month 0% BT offer.

chattychappy

Strange... I didn't notice there was a "both" option. Looks like I've already messed it up then. (Voted to ditch PO.)

choc_mouse

Thanks for the input everyone.

I'm swinging towards ditching the Zero (poll suggests that's the one I should ditch) mainly because of their dormancy fee and the bad experience I had getting the card in the first place.

Ditching both might happen in the future but experience tells me to have a backup for my backup cards!

izools

choc_mouse wrote: »

Thanks for the input everyone.

I'm swinging towards ditching the Zero (poll suggests that's the one I should ditch) mainly because of their dormancy fee and the bad experience I had getting the card in the first place.

Ditching both might happen in the future but experience tells me to have a backup for my backup cards!

Not to mention Santander having a habit of breaching the data protection act.

They were sending my ex my bank statements with his name on them for several months after the account was put into my name only and moved to another address.

Not to mention all the other diabolical aspects of the pretend "Duplo and Stickle Bricks" so-called-bank. Rid anything Santander you have ASAP!

System

You can get rid of both - use the Nationwide Cash Reward as a backup.

An added advantage being it's a Visa card, rather than a MasterCard so will work if the MasterCard network crashes taking the Clarity along with it.

choc_mouse

I made a decision! Gonna hold on to the Zero for a bit. The PO card is out:
- rarely used
- useless internet banking
- customer service is not 24/7. Was on the other side of the world once and needed my card unblocked. The 24/7 line is only for lost/stolen cards.
- min. cash advance fee of £3 (though I've never had to take cash on a credit card yet)

To tell the truth, even though I had a lot of technical problems with Santander initially, now that everything works, I have no complaints.