Clarity reward card, using ATM abroad question

trisha

I need some advice about the timing of cash withdrawals abroad.
I am going away on the 30th Aug for two weeks, the statement date is the 5th of Sept I have set up a DD to pay off in full each month which will be the 26th Sept

I shall need approx 500 euros for hotel and 700 euros for spending money, should I withdraw as much as I can in before the 5th if I do will I get charged interest on it until the DD is paid on the 26th ?

After the 5th should I just withdraw small amounts as and when I need to ?

Could some one please explain to me the best way to work it to pay less interest (12.9%)

I am a senior and find it very confusing after years of using a Flex card which was brilliant until they started charging

OllyM

You pay interest on the cash withdrawals from the day they debit your account to the day you pay them off, there isn't an interest free period. Will the hotel not accept a credit card payment directly? Try and use the card for purchases wherever possible rather than withdrawing cash.

malcolmffc

If you use the card to withdraw cash whilst abroad, login to your online banking and make a payment to the card equal to the withdrawal. This should avoid most, if any interest.

trisha

Unfortunately the hotel doesn't take credit cards :-(
Thank you for your advice, the spending money is mainly for food in the apartment and meals & drinks etc.and as we are going to a small Greek island we never pay by CC always euros as we shop in village shops and bakeries.

To Malcome
I would never use an internet cafe abroad to log into internet banking.

jackieblack

If you know which dates you are going to want to withdraw the cash, ask your bank to make a couple of 'one-off' payments to your clarity card on those dates.
This will minimise the amount of interest you will be charged to a few days max.
Just be careful that you do make the withdrawals and that these payments do not put your account into credit as this can cause problems.

jimclark1967

If you know how much you intend to withdraw when you get to the other end you could set up a transfer to the credit card before you leave, scheduling the payment for the day after you arrive.

Note that any payment you make needs to cover both the previous statement balance (if the DD has yet to go out) AND the foreign cash withdrawal since otherwise the payment will be allocated against the previous statement.

Note that unlike some card operators, Halifax's system does not take manual payments like this into account when working out the direct debit amount so you may need to call them to defer the DD for that month.

Have a great trip in any case :beer:

trisha

Jackie
If I did that, would it affect my dd payment, for instance might they take that amount as well in mistake ?

jackieblack

The direct debit on 26th September will be for the amount of the closing balance on the statement on 5th September.
If you were to withdraw cash in the few days before 5th and the bank payment didn't arrive until after the 5th, this amount would be included in that balance.

Do you know when you need to pay the hotel? Is it on arrival or departure? (I've never paid cash for a hotel)

For example, you could set up a payment for 30th August and withdraw this amount on arrival in Greece, this would probably hit your Clarity a/c about 4 or 5 days later, then set up another payment to leave your bank say around the 6th September (after statement date) and make another withdrawal on this date. Then if you are paying your hotel on departure you could make a third payment/withdrawal for the last/penultimate day of your holiday.

It's not an exact science, you'll end up being charged a few days interest each time. (At 12.9% it's about 3.5p per day on £100)

To check how long a payment takes to hit your Clarity account you could do a 'trial' payment for some nominal amount in the next couple of weeks (before you leave) making sure, of course, that you have used the card to pay for some transaction of at least that amount first.

jennifernil

Halifax card allocates payment first to any cash withdrawals, they now do it in the way that benefits the customer most as far as I can gather.

I would not worry, whatever way it works, it will be less expensive than withdrawing from Nationwide Flexaccount.

We have just been abroad for about 2 months, we took out about £900 in total, and the charges seem to be about £12.

jackieblack

A previous thread on this topic here

lisyloo

If you know how much you intend to withdraw when you get to the other end you could set up a transfer to the credit card before you leave, scheduling the payment for the day after you arrive.

There is a small problem with this that has already been touched upon.
When we got to Egypt last year we couldn't get money for about 4 days (ATMs at airport didn't work and hotel one was broken).
Be aware that if you go into credit your payments could be returned or absolute worst case your card could be stopped.
I suspect Greece is the kind of country where sometimes things don't work, so take a back up card just in case and allow some lee-way in your dates.
Paying a few days interest is prefereable to having your card stopped so allow a few days in case you can't get to an ATM (might be a good idea to take a few euros as well).