"Overpaying" credit card with low limit for large purchase?

highspeedtrain25

I have a graduate credit card with RBS with a £500 limit, which I pay off in full every month. I am hoping to book a holiday next month, and the combined bill for flights and accommodation will be £600 at least. I have this money in my current account, but I'll be booking the holiday online so would prefer to use my credit card - I'm wary of using debit cards for online spending.

I'm wondering if it would be possible to pay more than the full balance on my credit card to give me enough money on it to pay for my holiday? For example, say I have £100 on my credit card just now - if I paid £200 on the card when the bill was due, would this give me £600 to spend next month?

The only alternative I can think of, other than using my debit card, is to ask for a credit limit increase - but I will need to apply for a mortgage in about three months, and I'm concerned that asking for more credit now might hurt my mortgage application.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

eskbanker

Many credit card providers include clauses in their Ts & Cs to explicitly prohibit this preloading into credit balances - the RBS ones don't seem to be readily available online so have a read through of your account documentation and see what they say about it.

Without knowing your full financial status, if you're planning to apply for a mortgage, I'd have thought that you'd have sufficient credit rating to warrant a higher limit than £500, but you're right to be careful - do you have the option of staggering the flight and accommodation bookings to stay within your limit? Or paying a deposit by credit card (to secure the section 75 protection) and paying the rest by debit card?

thenudeone

Most likely result is to trigger the card being frozen on suspicion of money laundering or fraud.

Credit cards are not licensed to accept customers' deposits which is why it is almost always in the Ts and Cs that you must not deliberately put teh card into credit.

Hominu

Might be easier to go half and half, or even £1 on the CC and £599 on a debit card. You'll still get the same level of protection.

forgotmyname

Pay some cash and some on the card. Dont put it in credit.

Herbalus

If the payments can be split, you have the option of buying the flights (say £400), then transferring a payment for this to the credit card using faster payments in online banking, which will then enable you to use the card again.

Note it probably won't be immediate - faster payments should (at least they do with my accounts) normally show up on your available balance within two hours, which means that you can then use the card to book your £300 (or whatever) hotel.

highspeedtrain25

Thanks for all the replies - I suspected this wouldn't be possible, unfortunately, but I'm glad I checked. It's good to know that I would still get the same protection if I only paid some of the balance on the credit card, that should help. I'm not sure if I can split payments between different cards when booking online, though - would I need to phone up the booking website for that? I'm probably going to use lastminute.com for the hotel, not sure about flights yet.

eskbanker

Probably worth having a read through the MSE section 75 guide to familiarise yourself with the protection offered by credit cards - in particular the lack of coverage when buying flights and/or accommodation through third party travel agents such as lastminute.com.

Also worth noting the protection available for debit card purchases via the chargeback scheme....

Delree

Most people here would have you believe that the sky will fall down if you put a card into credit ending with the Feds bashing your door down. Back in 2011 I left a £100 credit on my card for 3 months and heard nothing about it whatsoever. I can understand if it were thousands but come on people.

lisyloo

Phone up make a partial payment.
Can you make an on-line fast payment from your current account.
Once the available credit has increased (usually a few minutes), then you can use your card again.

Delree is kinda right, you might get away with putting your card into credit and you probably would.
Personally I wouldn't want to recommend it because your card might get stopped.

eskbanker

Delree wrote: »

Most people here would have you believe that the sky will fall down if you put a card into credit ending with the Feds bashing your door down. Back in 2011 I left a £100 credit on my card for 3 months and heard nothing about it whatsoever. I can understand if it were thousands but come on people.

Personally I think most people on here would recommend checking the product Ts & Cs and making your own mind up as to the risks! No doubt some (maybe even most) will get away with minor breaches, especially if it's only a small amount and/or for a short period of time, but equally it would be irresponsible to come on here and say that everything will be fine....