Aqua Reward Credit Card - 3% cashback up to £100/year

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izools wrote: »

What they are saying is they think you would get in to financial difficulty with an offline debit card, and it is therefore beneficial for you to not have access to an unathorised overdraft.

Which is true.

What do you mean by "offline card" by the way? It says "VISA debit" on my Cashcard+. It's the embossed kind. It's not an Electron (that one is an online card, but nobody is issuing them anymore). If I tried, I'm petty sure nothing would stop me from getting an unauthorised overdraft (even though I can't get an authorised one). I'd have to check my terms and conditions to see what kind of boot they'll use on my back side if I ever do so though. They could reject the payment when the merchant asks for it (Pay@Pump earmarks only one pound when used, and I can pour 99 quid worth of petrol) and get myself in all sorts of trouble (like involving charges of theft and whatnot), but the card is as offline as it gets.

izools

The Cashcard+ is an "Online" card which means, despite the fact it's Embossed VISA Debit, it must authorise every single transaction with the bank, no matter how small.

Just because it's embossed doesn't mean it's online. The Visa Debit cards issued with the Co-Operative Cashminder and Barclays Cash Account are also embossed Visa Debit cards, but they are the online, full authentication kind.

The reason Electron has been dropped is because the full auth functionality of Electron has now been built in to the full Visa debit card branding, under certain BINs.

This means it can't be used at Pay@Pump Stations, or on Airplanes / Trains, and the such like.

Conversely, an offline card doesn't force the merchant's till / PDQ to authorise every transaction with the bank. The merchant could have a "Floor limit" which automatically approves every transaction under a given amount then sends these authorisation requests to the bank en mass at the end of the day.

This is why some cards go through super quick at the supermarket (offline) and some cards take a bit longer (online, or "Full auth").

With a CashCard+ there's absolutely no way whatsoever of any transaction going through without the bank first knowing the exact amount to be debited and giving their go ahead.

The same isn't true of the full card.

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izools wrote: »

This means it can't be used at Pay@Pump Stations, or on Airplanes / Trains, and the such like.

[...]

With a CashCard+ there's absolutely no way whatsoever of any transaction going through without the bank first knowing the exact amount to be debited and giving their go ahead.

I did say my CashCard+ worked at Pay@Pump just fine. And I didn't have anywhere close 99 quid on it. So what is it? Wikipedia's article on Visa Electron (but not the one on Visa Debit, amazingly) confirms the "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" story. I'll go "hmm" while I process this.

I did notice that my CCs get authorised so fast that I get prompted to take them back as soon as I put my PIN in and was wondering what that was about. I'll have to try a normal debit card and see if they're really slower or the card readers got improved.

reclusive46

Its not true about the pay at pumps. Online only cards do work at Pay at pumps but some banks like RBS and Natwest block pay at pumps on their online only cards.

guesswho2000

izools wrote: »

Your profile is simply considered too high risk in Nationwide's eyes.

From my experience, Nationwide are fairly risk averse anyway; they refused me a full Flexaccount numerous times - however, one day they approved my mortgage and all of a sudden I became their favourite customer, full Flexaccount last year & Select credit card last week; their saving grace is the fact that they provide quotation searches for loans and CCs, so you don't have to ruin your CRA file just to find out they don't want you!

I do have an 'on topic' question too! For those who have got the Aqua reward; some have stated they were told an expected credit limit when they applied - I got the message saying they were pleased to give me a card this afternoon, but no mention of a limit? Have others experienced this?

Also, I had an Aqua card many moons ago (2008 I think), is their online account servicing still as awful as it used to be?

izools

When you receive the credit agreement to sign and return the limit you've been given is the first three (or four) digits in the long row of numbers on the "do not mark below this line" line.

I had an Aqua card in 2008, too, as it goes. Yeah, their online account servicing is still poor. It's more polished than it used to be, slightly, but still quite basic.

At least they now accept faster payments

Nationwide have been uber lax with me and my OH, they even upped my OD limit to £5,000 at the turn of the year! Crazies. Reduced that to £500 fairly quickly. And they gave my OH a £20,000 loan despite him having three pretty much maxed out cards at the time (85% debt to limit). And the APR was only 9.9%, which for a loan that size over seven years is actually quite good.

Blue_Max

guesswho2000 wrote: »

I do have an 'on topic' question too! For those who have got the Aqua reward; some have stated they were told an expected credit limit when they applied - I got the message saying they were pleased to give me a card this afternoon, but no mention of a limit? Have others experienced this?

When I applied online, I got a message saying that it was approved. Few days later, I got a letter in the post saying, "we have approved your application..." and asked me to return the Agreement Form.
It was only when I got the card, I knew my credit card limit.

grumbler

Don't know about 2008, but the website is extremely slow and extremely basic.
The drop-down menu for selecting a page to see the recent transactions is extremely annoying and amateurish as you don't know whether there are more pages without clicking the menu box.

The first time I've seen the limit it was some faceless 500 figure (not £500) 'for office use only' in the bottom line of the first page of the credit agreement that I had to sign and send back.

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grumbler wrote: »

The drop-down menu for selecting a page to see the recent transactions is extremely annoying and amateurish as you don't know whether there are more pages without clicking the menu box.

I just click the "Show All" link and don't bother with pages.

grumbler

Thanks for this. It's 6 months now and I have not noticed this.