Cards: Halifax Clarity? Or Metro Bank?

nafe12

Looking for a card for cash withdrawals overseas...
Was reading through the travel money page, but am a bit confused:

It says that "it doesn't charge a fee for cash withdrawals, although you will be charged interest even if you repay in full. The rate for cash withdrawals is a fairly low 12.9% APR"

My question is, how quickly can you pay back your withdrawals before you are charged interest? I suppose 12.9%APR is not much per day?
Alternatively, can you just transfer a bunch of cash to the credit card, in advance, so that way you won't pay interest on withdrawals (i.e. free?).


I suppose the other alternative is to open a MetroBank bank account and get a debit card? Sounds a bit less confusing I guess...

Advice appreciated!

benjus

I'm not sure how long it takes to pay off a Halifax credit card by bank transfer, although it shouldn't be more than 3 working days. It might be faster if done from a Halifax current account. If the credit card allows you to pay it off by debit card this should be instant, although you may not be able to do this online.

Running a positive balance (i.e. loading money onto the card in advance) is prohibited by most credit cards. They could potentially refuse the payment, block the card, or do nothing about it. The problem is, you don't know which of these is going to happen...

Personally I prefer my Metro Bank card for cash withdrawals. I have a Santander Zero card but I've never used it to get cash.

nafe12

With metrobank, you get a debit card. So I guess I can use that to 'pay' for purchases by plastic -- these aren't charged are they??

And I suppose you can just top up your account by bank transfer? BACS?

benjus

That's right, no charges for using it for purchases either. You can certainly use BACS transfers, although I don't think Faster Payments are supported at the moment - last time I did a transfer it took a while to arrive.

whatusername

The Clarity APR is around 1% a month based on your balance, if you pay your withdrawal off within a day or 2 of making the transaction you will be charged what in essence will be a part of 1%.

Not a lot in the grand scale of things really.

Baldur

benjus wrote: »

That's right, no charges for using it for purchases either. You can certainly use BACS transfers, although I don't think Faster Payments are supported at the moment - last time I did a transfer it took a while to arrive.

Made a first test FP of £1 into my new Metro Bank a/c this morning, which had arrived within an hour or so.

A second test FP of £20 to the account made before lunch is still not showing, so inward FP appears to be possible, as claimed by their 'blurb', but not necessarily reliable.

<Edit> Second FP now showing as received into my Metro Bank account.

jonesjw

Well I've gone for both in the last month.

After the Nationwide offered me a good deal to entice me in & then hoiked it away, my plan is to move all my current account business to Metro.

Also the Halifax credit card will be a useful back up option. This can replace one of my other credit cards.

Inactive

I received my HFX Clarity Card this week, I made a test purchase with it, it took a couple of days to show up online, I then tried to pay off the balance in full via my HFX Bank Account.

It would not allow payment until the following days date, it now shows up as paid on my HFX Bank Account, however it is still not showing as paid on the HFX Clarity CC section.

I am not impressed.

Baldur

Inactive wrote: »

It would not allow payment until the following days date, it now shows up as paid on my HFX Bank Account, however it is still not showing as paid on the HFX Clarity CC section.

I found the same, having made a small test purchase to check the speed of clearing the card balance from one of my Reward accounts.

The date that you set for the online payment has to be a future date and there is a notification to the effect that up to 4 days should be allowed for the payment to reach the CC account.

Clarity only to be used as a backup for my Metro Bank Debit Card when abroad, as far as I'm concerned.

Inactive

I have just made another small test purchase, I will try paying that off using my HSBC Bank Account, see what happens..;)