Cashback in a store on a credit card

orochijutah

Hello,
Im a complete newbie who wants to start credit card stoozing in september.
If I shop at tesco's and I say spend £10 on real shopping and ask for £50 cashback does it count as a £60 purchase?? or £10 purchase and £50 cash advance?

meer53

Generally you can't get cashback on a credit card. Only on debit cards.

bbfc

You cannot get 'cashback' on a Credit Card, and even if you could, I very much doubt it would be classed as a Purchase, more like a Cash Advance. You can withdraw cash from an ATM, but you will be charged for the withdrawal.

thenudeone

bbfc wrote: »

. You can withdraw cash from an ATM, but you will be charged for the withdrawal.

And you will be charged interest straight away, even if you pay the statement in full.

You can't generally get "cashback" at a till with a credit card (because the store pays a percentage of each CREDIT card transaction). Wilkinsons is the only place I've heard of this happening.

chattychappy

bbfc wrote: »

You cannot get 'cashback' on a Credit Card, and even if you could, I very much doubt it would be classed as a Purchase, more like a Cash Advance.

Actually I disagree with the second bit. If they allow it at all it's probably because they've set up their systems wrongly or don't care. So it might well go through as a purchase. There has been the odd report of that happening here. Certainly I've met the occasional "friendly" merchant overseas who has been prepared to give a little cash back within a purchase transaction. Presumably they are happy on the basis that the profit on the goods sold more than covers their commission on the transaction.

(I also knew a bureau de change that would advance you cash on a CC. The guy would give you the choice of either putting it through as a purchase or cash advance - charging more for putting it through as a purchase. Not allowed of course....)

But agree with the gist... no, you can't get cashback on a CC.

bbfc

thenudeone wrote: »

And you will be charged interest straight away, even if you pay the statement in full.

Forgot to mention the interest bit.

Actually I disagree with the second bit. If they allow it at all it's probably because they've set up their systems wrongly or don't care. So it might well go through as a purchase.

Possibly. Although most till systems will determine what card you are using and then offer the choice of cashback. Thats how it works at the retailer I work for. If a CC is used, the till will not prompt for cashback, but it will if a debit card is used. But I work for a very large high street retailer. In smaller retailers what you said could happen. Thinking about it, it will probably go through as a purchase as all the receipt will say is 'Debit my account £x', in effect you are buying cash off the retailer and they are charging your card.

Overseas, then anything is possible.

agrinnall

The reason why, in general, it's not possible to get a cash advance on a credit card is that it would make no financial sense to the retailer to offer it. Given that they have to pay a percentage of the total for every CC transaction then they would effectively be selling you cash at a loss. That's not the case for a debit card, where there is a flat fee paid so it doesn't cost the retailer any more to sell you a £10 widget than it does to sell the same widget and £50 cashback (well, it might do if they hand out more cash than they take in and have to pay bank cash handling fees, but that's pretty unlikely).