Best use of a cash advance on a credit card - Advice please?

sonstbbs

Hi there,
I'm new to this section of the forum and am hoping for someone can offer me the advice I need.

We have a property in Spain and tenants have landed us with a few months arrears on the electricity bills (amounting to 900 euros approx £750)

I have tried to pay the arrears via the (Spanish) electric company's website, but it will not go through because the CC is English.

This is a pain as one of the reasons I got the CC last month was for this very reason.
We have, for various reasons, got to get this bill paid as soon as poss.
We are going over to Spain Mon 17th Feb (week tomz) to sort this and other bits and pieces out, I have been told by the company that cash is good!

Thing is now I can't use my CC direct to pay for this I'm a bit stuck.
I know I can get cash using my CC but obviously that costs money.

Using an eqation from a previous thread, I've worked out that at 29% APR on £800 it would be 63p per day equalling about £20 per month...is this amount roughly right?

We're back in the UK the week after and we will pay the whole amount off within 3 months.

Would it be worth calling my CC customer service and ask the right way to go about getting the cash into my account?

I'm going to be using the cash to buy euro's via the post office, am I right in thinking I'd incur the 2.5% fee for foreign transactions if I were to pay direct by CC. (therefore better to get the cash in sterling first?)

Lots of bitty questions I know. Appreciate this is not an ideal way to use a credit card, but it will still be offering us a solution to a bit of an immediate fix.

Any advice will be considered, thank-you

ricky_v

If you really need to borrow cash on a CC, I'd be tempted in applying for a 0% cash transfer for a 4% fee which would cost you a fee of £30 for £750 but no interest for 29 months.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/cut-loan-overdraft-costs

You might be cutting it fine if you're going in a week tomorrow.

grumbler

sonstbbs wrote: »

Using an eqation from a previous thread, I've worked out that at 29% APR on £800 it would be 63p per day equalling about £20 per month...is this amount roughly right?

Don't know what equation it was, but the correct figures are 56p and £17.15 if this makes any difference.

Would it be worth calling my CC customer service and ask the right way to go about getting the cash into my account?

You can ask, but most likely it will cost you the same as withdrawing money from ATM(s).

I'm going to be using the cash to buy euro's via the post office, am I right in thinking I'd incur the 2.5% fee for foreign transactions if I were to pay direct by CC. (therefore better to get the cash in sterling first?)

No. It will be treated as a UK cash advance. I think there are better ways to buy euros in UK: Compare Travel Cash

Any advice will be considered

IMO it's odd that the card was declined only because it wasn't a Spanish one.

YorkshireBoy

grumbler wrote: »

Don't know what equation it was, but the correct figures are 56p and £17.15 if this makes any difference.

It may have been the one I posted yesterday on another board, but I rounded 3.3p down to 3p for ease of reading. Maybe the OP has manipulated my figures?


OP, if you have a purchases balance on the card you intend to use (and normally pay this in full) you will find this balance starts to attract interest (albeit at your purchases rate) alongside the cash advance. That will need to be factored in, along with any fees payable (which will also attract 27% APR, like the advance to which they relate).

sonstbbs

Thanks for replies so far....I only used the working out example (not previously posted by Yorkshireboy) as a loose sum to work out interest, so knowing it's going to be £17-20 is easier to stomach than thinking it's going to be £40-50 that was my reasoning in asking if the sum was correct(ish)

Grumbler....Spain has it's own rules and applies them rigidly...galling and a pain, especially when trying to do things at arm's length.

The card has a clear balance, so any money owed will only be from this transaction.

Thanks