halifax clarity card

vickk

Hi, does anyone else use this card. I got one last year for our trip and was pleased with the rates I got and no charges.

However I have used it this month in spain to pay for car hire and my statement has just come through. The only info the statement shows is the uk charge in pounds, it does not show the charge in euro or the rate of exchange. They say they have been doing it like this for a couple of months now.

The bill was 460 euro and I have been charged 405 pounds which I work out at a rate around 1.13 which is nowhere near the rate during May. To my mind this means I have been charged the wrong rate or that the car hire company applied a charge higher than the bill. Either way despite phoning Halifax they can not tell me the rate used or the euro charge applied by the car hire company

Anyone else had this problem recently? I don't understand why they have stopped showing the details on the statement and have put in a written complaint. Even the customer service guy didnt know they had stopped it

Tixy

This post might be better on the main credit card board not the stoozing section.

Is your credit card machine receipt definitely in euros not pounds?

Just wondering if you inadvertently paid in pounds and so paid the shops exchange rates?

purplepiggy69

Where did you look up the exchange rate? The exchange rates posted on places like XE currency converter are not the same as the exchange rates used for exchanging money - they are the interbank rates and are more favourable than any money exchange rates for mere mortals like us! The most reliable place to find the 'proper' exchange rate is to look at the Mastercard exchange rates themselves, which are still pretty close to the XE rates. You can do a historical look up here (I believe this is the credit card exchange rate but take no responsibility if not!): (can't post link so do search engine for 'Mastercard Global Currency Conversion'). If it's miles off then you may have been overcharged by the hire place. Do you have a copy of the invoice? Was there any local sales tax that was not included? Did you say you wanted the transaction in Euros or GBP? If you went for GBP then the local bank rate will have been applied, and it could really be anything. There is an article on Martin's blog about this. I guess there is the possibility that the local merchant machine automatically detected the UK card and charged in GBP. This may be why there is no Eur or exchange rate on the statement. Did Halifax say all statements do not show this info, or just for this transaction? If the latter then you may have your answer.

noh

They (Halifax) have not stopped putting the exchange rate on the bills when you pay in a foreign currency.

You most probably paid the bill in sterling the retailer did the conversion at their own (favourable to them) rate.

See http://www.theukcardsassociation.org.uk/individual/dynamic-currency-conversion.asp
or Google Dynamic Currency Conversion.