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

Blue_Max

£100 is the max; not a lot!
so I use other cashback and reward cards

sparky0138

Uplink wrote: »

This happened to me since day one, transaction one. I have no (sound) explanation for it. As I approached my limit, this stopped happening.

Thanks. It's good to know it's not just me anyway. Very strange that it happens though. You'd think something like that would be straight forward and pretty important on their list of things to have right.

gglaze

sparky0138 wrote: »

Thanks. It's good to know it's not just me anyway. Very strange that it happens though. You'd think something like that would be straight forward and pretty important on their list of things to have right.

It sounds like you are talking about the "available credit" amount showing up online, as opposed to the current balance? In other words, available credit being the total credit limit, minus posted transactions, minus pending transactions? And you are trying to reconcile your (pending, not posted) transactions based on actual transaction amounts you know you've paid, but haven't shown up as individual posted transactions yet? Is that right?

If so, I don't think this is a problem specific to Aqua - I frequently see this issue with other cards - even Barclaycard, etc. As I understand it, it is also up to the merchants of the individual transactions, which may have different systems for rounding, adding a "buffer", or whatever else to the pending transaction, such that it doesn't exactly match the final posted transaction amount?

I was reconciling my Aqua transactions (pending and posted) over the last couple of weeks to keep track of how much credit I really had left, and generally it seemed to match up well to what I expected, but of course there were delays and discrepancies with the pending transactions for a couple of days before they were finally showing up as posted. I did not notice any discrepancies on the finally posted transactions.

That said, I wish these cards would show you the individual pending transactions. I know it is possible, as some accounts do - but I guess most of them don't, and just leave you to work it out for yourself.

sparky0138

gglaze wrote: »

It sounds like you are talking about the "available credit" amount showing up online, as opposed to the current balance? In other words, available credit being the total credit limit, minus posted transactions, minus pending transactions? And you are trying to reconcile your (pending, not posted) transactions based on actual transaction amounts you know you've paid, but haven't shown up as individual posted transactions yet? Is that right?

I think so, yes. As my credit card was paid up to date and I didn't owe anything apart from my recent transactions (pending, as none were posted), I assumed my available credit would show my credit limit minus at least some of the transactions but they just seem to have taken off random amounts. As I said, I know it will work itself out once they are all posted but this is my first time using a credit card regularly so I've never experienced this before.

gglaze

I think it also depends what kind of transactions/merchants you are dealing with. For example, consider the most obvious - hotels or car rentals - they of course always put pending holds/charges on your account, above and beyond the actual transaction amount, to cover incidentals or whatever. And then when the final posted transactions show up on your account, they are usually back to what you expected, and then the temporary hold stuff may or may not be cleared off immediately, or it might take a few more days.

I've seen other merchants besides hotels and car rentals do funny stuff as well, so I don't think it's just limited to those types of business. I've even seen cases of small convenience stores rounding up on a stick of gum to the nearest whole pound, and then the correct posted amount showing up the next day. So I imagine anyone can do it, as long as their final posted amounts are correct. I don't fully understand the purpose of it, or who is doing it exactly (the merchant or the card provider, or both) - but I'm sure this happens regularly.

Uplink

gglaze wrote: »

It sounds like you are talking about the "available credit" amount showing up online, as opposed to the current balance? In other words, available credit being the total credit limit, minus posted transactions, minus pending transactions? And you are trying to reconcile your (pending, not posted) transactions based on actual transaction amounts you know you've paid, but haven't shown up as individual posted transactions yet? Is that right?

Regarding my answer earlier, it is indeed the "available credit" that is off the mark, not the balance, but I had every transaction posted, nothing pending, and the "available credit" stayed offset. And the merchant was Paypal. Paypal never put a hold above what I owe them, and the held amounts had no relation to the transactions themselves. I stopped keeping track of the discrepancy, so I don't know when it went away.

Wywth

Blue_Max wrote: »

£100 is the max; not a lot!
so I use other cashback and reward cards

I doubt I'm going to get the maximum this year.
You can't usually pay your rent/mortgage by credit card. Utility bills are usually better off being paid by direct debit.

As a MSE'er, I'll struggle to spend over £3k on a credit card this year ... and I'm certainly not going to spend more than I otherwise would.

Btw, I have a Barclays cashback card. No annual fee, but just 0.25% cashback and keeps falling (Used to be a MSDW card, where it was 2% up to £2k spend and 1% after that - never had £40 per year cashback from that one). Doesn't get used at all now since I got my Aqua card

Blue_Max

Wywth wrote: »

Utility bills are usually better off being paid by direct debit.

I used to pay Council Tax by DD. Then found out that my County Council accept credit card payments. As a one off payment, every month or whenever you like.

anon_ymous

Wywth wrote: »

I doubt I'm going to get the maximum this year.
You can't usually pay your rent/mortgage by credit card. Utility bills are usually better off being paid by direct debit.

As a MSE'er, I'll struggle to spend over £3k on a credit card this year ... and I'm certainly not going to spend more than I otherwise would.

I just buy things that other people want, and get the cashback

Wywth wrote: »

Btw, I have a Barclays cashback card. No annual fee, but just 0.25% cashback and keeps falling (Used to be a MSDW card, where it was 2% up to £2k spend and 1% after that - never had £40 per year cashback from that one). Doesn't get used at all now since I got my Aqua card

Oh that MSDW card seemed pretty good! I have a Capital One Classic Extra here, which gives 0.5% to an unlimited amount, but if you think about it, I'd need to spend £20,000 on the Capital one card to get the same amount as the Aqua card

I use the Capital one card, when Im not sure if my balance will cover it. ie: today, my DD came out, so didn't want to do an FPI on a weekend

On the weekend, I was told to buy:

A sat nav for £95, and I paid for my friend's shopping (He tends to pay back quite quickly), so I paid on my Capital One. I'd rather have less cashback, than risk paying the overlimit fee, as well as losing my cashback with the card!

blitzboy

Blue_Max wrote: »

I used to pay Council Tax by DD. Then found out that my County Council accept credit card payments. As a one off payment, every month or whenever you like.

Me too. Also South West Water have recently started taking credit card payments without charge:)

It's always worth checking.