Halifax Clarity - can I avoid interest on withdrawls abroad ?

dzug1

atlantis187 wrote: »

I'm just going to be transfering the £2k from our joint halifax reward account. So if they not happy with it they can just transfer the money back into the account or send us a cheque out. Atleast we will know one way or another where it is possible to pre load or not.

Yes they can - but they don't have to do it quickly.

But you still won't know for certain - they don't have to be consistent in what they do.

My own guess is that £2K is far more likely to raise alarm bells than smaller sums.

lisyloo

I see no reason why you cannot pre-load the card.

The problem is that it can create more problems than it solves.
It's against the Ts and Cs so worst case you card could be stopped.
Hopefully you will have taken a back up card, but you could either end up having no card or paying higher charges on your back-up card.
You have to ask yourself whether it's worth it for the very low interest charges.
I know we are all money savers and therefore our instinct is to save money, but you should be aware that short term these charges are very small.

My own recent experience in Egypt was that I could not get cash at the airport.
For the first couple of days the ATM at the hotel was broken (this is what Egypt is like) and we were not in walking distance of any.
We were ok because we could put everything on our hotel bill.
We also changed some £s and Euros we had at a bank when we were in town but obviously had to pay commission and had a very limited amount of cash.
After a few days the hotel ATM was working so that was fine.
The point of that anecdote is that it's hard to set up forward payments unless you're in a major European city.

tony1947

atlantis187 wrote: »

I'm just going to be transfering the £2k from our joint halifax reward account. So if they not happy with it they can just transfer the money back into the account or send us a cheque out. Atleast we will know one way or another where it is possible to pre load or not.

Interesting thread and thanks to all contributors. I have used my Clarity Card and immediately paid off via internet several times and it certainly works but I have never preloaded the card. I would think it's possible as the card can be in credit as it usually is at the beginning of the month when the reward is applied and no purchases made.

Look forward to hearing about your experiment.

YorkshireBoy

tony1947 wrote: »

Look forward to hearing about your experiment.

Here's what's happened before when this "experiment" was carried out with a Halifax credit card...

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/528883

lisyloo

I would think it's possible as the card can be in credit

I've put my card in credit deliberately as I wanted no residual interest.
But there is a difference between £2.78 and £2K.
I don't think they will worry about small amounts that can happen when you get refund, or get a reward.

I don't think any experiments can be regarded as a reliable guide to the future. Just because one person gets away with doesn't it mean it's a guaranteed system.
I would always take at least one spare card abroad. You can always leave any extra cards in your hotel safe, so you don't have to carry them all with you.

milton1970

Wow .. posted the original question to get an idea & seems to have prompted debate (including internet safety abroad).

From this I am taking the answer as ...

Don't pre-load but if you have the opportunity to pay off via internet banking early then do so ... but only where network is secure

Agree with lisyloo that best approach here is to minimise rather than avoid charges altogether to avoid card being blocked.

Thanks again to all

BTW payments between Halifax current & credit card take 24 hrs (next day) in my experience

cdsheldon

There are several threads relating to reducing/avoiding interest charges when making cash (ATM) withdrawals abroad with the Halifax Clarity credit card, but this seems the most appropriate one to add my comments.

Accepting the fact that pre-loading the card with cash is not advisable (as it is against the T&C of the card), I withdrew £42 (Sterling equivalent) cash on 2nd December and credited my account with £42 on 4th December, expecting to be charged interest for just a couple of days. I also used the card for (non-cash) purchases whilst abroad and was charged interest on my £42 cash advance from 2nd December until 10 January, the date the account was cleared by my monthly direct debit payment.

According to a phone call to Halifax, interest charges on the £42 cash advance continue until the balance on the account has been paid off in full.

However, according to section 2.2 of the Terms and Conditions (T&C)

"We use any payments you make to pay off transactions that appear on your statements starting with those on which we charge interest at the highest rate. We will then pay off transactions on which we charge interest at the next highest rate and so on down to the lowest rate of interest."

The interest rate for purchases and cash advances is the same, but the T&C then state

"If the payment is not enough to pay off all transactions at a particular interest rate, we will pay off transactions charged at that interest rate in the order:- cash advances, cheques, purchases, balance transfers and default sums."

My simple interpretation of this is that my cash advance payment should have been paid off first and I should only have been charged 2 days interest, as my remaining balance (all purchases) was paid off by the payment due date.

I would be interest to know if anyone has an explanation for the interest I was charged. In the meantime I would advise others to use the Halifax Clarity card only for cash withdrawals, paying it off as soon as you can to reduce interest charges, and use another credit card with no overseas loading (e.g. Post Office) for purchases.

chattychappy

When you made your withdrawal, was there still a balance on the account from before (probably to be cleared by DD around 10Dec)?

If so then it seems your payment would have been applied to your statemented balance before transactions that had not yet been statemented.

I don't have a Halifax Card, but Zero does it this way and the term you quoted suggests Halifax is the same. Statemented transactions always take precedence over unstatemented transactions. Within those groups, then it's highest APR first.

cdsheldon

Thanks, that might be the explanation as I made some purchases on my card a couple of days before the cash withdrawal. These were probably deemed as "statemented" before the cash advance. I still find the wording of the T&C misleading though.

Now that Nationwide has withdrawn free cash withdrawals abroad, the Halifax Clarity card is the best bet for ATM withdrawals. A few pence in interest charges is nothing compared to the fees charged by most of the other UK banks, so I shouldn't really complain!

As I said before, anyone wanting to minimise their interest charges should consider using separate cards for cash and purchases.

Party_Animal

Just back from Central America, where I used my Halifax card for the first time. I set up a payment before I left but drew out slightly more. In the end it cost me 45p. Much cheaper than Nationwide.