Halifax Clarity

iseethestrals

Hi
I am going abroad for 3 weeks and was planning on using my Clarity card for cash withdrawals as they do not charge a fee apart from the interest fee.
Is the interest charged from the day I withdraw right up until the next statement date even if I were to make a one off payment to the card once I have withdrawn cash?
The interest is 12.9% APR. what would I expect to pay on my withdrawals?
Any help gratefully appreciated as I would prefer not to take cash with me
Gemma

lisyloo

Is the interest charged from the day I withdraw right up until the next statement date

In my experience it's from the "posting date" e.g. you might withdraw on a Sunday but it doesn't get counted until Monday.
That's a detail but the more important point is that you'll only get charged up to the date you pay it off (and your payment has cleared of course).

This assumes you have no purchases or previous lending on the card. If you have other lending then you have to be aware of which part of your balance is being reduced.

what would I expect to pay on my withdrawals?

About 12.9/365 per day (approx).

I would prefer not to take cash with me

My advice base on previous experience is
1) Take a little cash if you have some even if only for a bottle of water. Cash machines at the airport or hotel may not work or your card could get blocked
2) Take a spare card or two. Better to pay a little more than have no money at all. You can always leave them in the hotel safe once you're up and running.
3) Call Halifax with countries and dates beforehand to reduce your chances of your card being blocked.
4) Don't use shared computers for banking transaction. Better to pay a small amount of interest. If worried don't even use WIFI - the interest will probably add up to the cost of a coffee. I am an IT consultant and I've worked with security and I still have some concerns about WIFI but the general concensus is that those are theorectical risks and that's verging on being too paranoid.

Do consider the cost of WIFI because if it costs you £5 for the Wifi but £2 for the interest then it's not MSE.
On the whole the interest charges are going to be low e.g. 12.9% is circa 1% per month.