Accidental 'cash advance' on stoozing card

PeteW

Hiya,

I've got an M&S credit card I've been stoozing away for a few months, but this month I put a little bet on the Grand National and I now see that's attracted a 'gambling transaction fee' as these are now treated as 'cash advances'!

I had no idea this was the case - Yes, I know, I should have read the 300 pages of small print before signing up...! It looks as though this transaction will not be covered by the interest free period.

So what I'm wondering is, in what order are debts paid off? Can I selectively pay off this interest-gaining debt in order to keep the rest of the debt interest free? Or am I going to have to pay the lot back to avoid interest?

Cheers

Pete

YorkshireBoy

Your questions are answered in the summary box (allocation of payments), and further explained in condition 5(i) of your T&Cs, helpfully entitled "repayments".

If they're not to hand, you'll find a copy on their website.

Best case scenario: Make a payment covering the transaction, it's fee, interest accrued so far (which you can work out), and a token £5 on top, and if this doesn't stop the interest you're on to plan B below.

Plan B: Absorb the tiny amount of residual/trailing interest charged each month to the account, and continue kicking yourself each month for the remainder of the 0% intro period!

Do not repay, because I suspect you'll make more in savings interest over the 0% intro period than it'll cost you in residual/trailing interest.

And on your "300 pages" comment, if you're going to successfully stooz you *need* to pay more attention to the, in this case, 5 pages of T&Cs...or at least peruse the summary box (which takes up only one page!).

Please feedback the outcome, because my "best case scenario" above is an educated guess.

PeteW

You're right, I should - and will - pay more attention to the T&Cs.

Have spoken to M&S and have made a debit card payment which settles the 'cash balance'.

Milarky

In general [your 'Terms and Conditions' may differ] a payment in the same month as a new transaction is made comes off the existing (0% here) balance rather than the interest-bearing item just wrung up.

Order of payments only applies 'after' the statement comes out. So you should wait until that date has passed before trying to make offsetting credit to remove it