travel money cards

kernowalan

i've been using the halifax clarity card for our regular trips to our Spanish holiday home. The exchange rate is so good making it good even for cash withdrawals.
My question is could I avoid the interest payments by overpaying my card balance so I'm in credit before going?
We have a regular need to send money to our Spanish account for bills and the like. Drawing cash and walking over the road to deposit it would also provided a cost effective money transfer route.

grumbler

kernowalan wrote: »

My question is could I avoid the interest payments by overpaying my card balance so I'm in credit before going?

If you check the T&C you are likely to find that deliberate putting your CC in credit is against them.

eskbanker

grumbler wrote: »

If you check the T&C you are likely to find that deliberate putting your CC in credit is against them.

Not only that but Halifax obviously get this question so often it's in their product FAQs, complete with the cross-reference to the relevant clause in the Ts & Cs!

http://www.halifax.co.uk/creditcards/low-rate-no-fee/clarity-card/#Can_I_put_money_on_my_card

Best thing to do to avoid interest charges is to withdraw the cash and then make a payment to the card account within a day or two rather than waiting for the statement....

Edit: that direct link doesn't seem to work, scroll down to the 'common enquiries' tab and go from there!

kernowalan

thanks for your time and well researched reply:j
knew it was too good to be true. We do already try to time withdrawals near to statement date.

bigadaj

kernowalan wrote: »

thanks for your time and well researched reply:j
knew it was too good to be true. We do already try to time withdrawals near to statement date.

I tend to use the clarity mainly for cash withdrawals abroad and then pay as soon as I get home, no point in paying interst for longer than necessary but purchases can make this more complicated or you miss out on some of the interest free period do purchases at least.

grumbler

Why do you miss out?

lisyloo

Kerowalan - can you not make faster payments on the same day?

Why do you miss out?

My understanding is that statemented purchases would be cleared before cash, so if you wanted to pay off your cash to avoid interest then you have to pay off your statemented purchases and forego the interest free days.

grumbler

lisyloo wrote: »

My understanding is that statemented purchases would be cleared before cash,

Why? Unless you mean unstatemented cash, I don't see any reasons for this even without checking the T&C, but if you insist...

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

6. ALLOCATION OF PAYMENTS

6.1 We use any payments you make to pay off Transactions that appear on your statement starting with those on which we charge the highest rate of interest, and so on down to the lowest rate of interest. If the payment is not enough to pay off all Transactions at a particular interest rate, we will pay off Transactions charged at that interest rate in the following order:- Cash Withdrawals, Purchases, Balance Transfers and Cheques, followed by the charges in conditions 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3. If you pay more than the amount due shown on your statement, we will use any remaining payment to pay off Transactions that have not yet appeared on your statement in the same order as those that do appear on your statement. In this condition, "Transaction" includes the amount of the Purchase, Cash Withdrawal, Cheque or Balance Transfer plus any interest, charges or insurance payment charged as a result of that Transaction.

https://www.halifax.co.uk/creditcards/low-rate-no-fee/clarity-card/terms/

Yes, if you use the card for purchases as well, then before paying off a withdrawal you have to make sure that it appeared in the online statement.

zagfles

grumbler wrote: »

Why? Unless you mean unstatemented cash, I don't see any reasons for this even without checking the T&C, but if you insist...
Yes, if you use the card for purchases as well, then before paying off a withdrawal you have to make sure that it appeared in the online statement.

Just to be clear - it's the monthly statement that is relevant. Not just whether it appears online in the list of recent transations. Anything on a monthly statement will always be paid before anything which isn't.

grumbler

This is understandable. The statement balance has to be paid off first then to make things simpler.

bigadaj

It's a very minor consideration and effectively a choice between paying the difference between say 0.25and 1% on a cash advance and losing up to say 5 weeks interest free on a free purchase.