halifax clarity mastercard to purchase euros in england or spain via atm?

EW1

I used my clarity card to withdraw Euros in Germany, and then went on line a few hours later when I had a wifi connection to pay if off in full. Both the withdrawal and the payment occurred on the same day and the postings appeared on the statement on the next working day, and therefore I did not expect to get charged any interest. However when I received my statement, it showed a 51p interest charge. A trivial amount, but I am curious to know why. Is interest calculated by the hour?

EW1

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

Indeed. At the representative 12.9% APR it'll be just over 3p per day per £100.

So working on £500 withdrawn (linearly) over a 2 week holiday the interest will amount to the princely sum of £1.17 if settled on your day of return to the UK.

And if you go away for only a week, why are we even discussing it!

You go on holiday to relax...not to spend time shuffling money around!

So why bother reading MSE if you are not bothered about making maximum savings?

dzug1

EW1 wrote: »

I used my clarity card to withdraw Euros in Germany, and then went on line a few hours later when I had a wifi connection to pay if off in full. Both the withdrawal and the payment occurred on the same day and the postings appeared on the statement on the next working day, and therefore I did not expect to get charged any interest. However when I received my statement, it showed a 51p interest charge. A trivial amount, but I am curious to know why. Is interest calculated by the hour?

One day's interest?


Or it could be your payment was applied towards your previous statement balance and interest was charged on the withdrawal until the next statement

System

zerog wrote: »

A lot of misunderstandings in this thread.
Mastercard does not charge the banks anything on foreign transactions (except transaction fees which are charged on all transactions) but the banks have decided to charge you 3%.

MasterCard charges European issuers for all non-European transactions. It also charges the card issuer for cash withdrawals at the ATMs or over the counter regardless of the location.

Halifax (BOS) are absorbing these with Clarity.

YorkshireBoy

EW1 wrote: »

So why bother reading MSE if you are not bothered about making maximum savings?

Ever heard of cost benefit analysis?

If I was bothered about being MSE when on holiday abroad I'd have just the one large Mythos...not several, at €2.50 each. And I'd have pizza, rather than locally caught fish cooked to perfection, and served with a delicious Greek salad.

After I've had my meal I want to ask the waiter for a coffee and brandy...not the Wi-Fi password!

It's £1.17 for goodness sake...and that's for a hefty £500 withdrawal for 'incidentals' on a 2 week holiday (meals, car hire and/or excursions are purchases).


Sometimes there's more to life than being MSE.

NiftyDigits

penguingirl wrote: »

Also remember that it is against the t&cs of the card to have it in credit (so adding 'a bit extra' probably would result in this). There have been threads on here about people who have had their cards cancelled because of this.

The best thing to do is to only withdraw cash as and when you need it, and pay with cc wherever possible (always pay in euros, not £ abroad if they ask). When the transaction hits your account, pay it asap. The amount of interest will be tiny (pence) for a few days.

I'd like to see a thread in which it is claimed that a Clarity account has been closed because of an overpayment of a few pounds.
Not just hearsay, but an actual case.

Biggles

adindas wrote: »

There were already a few reports people get blocked because of this while abroad and desperately need the card.

True, there are, but I think these have generally been due to other, frequently unknown, reasons and not due to loading the card with credit.

I suspect that this clause is put in to give the bank the option to return the money or block or close the account if someone regularly abuses it, or leaves a large credit balance for a period of time. Otherwise I don't know that they'd be too bothered; let's face it, they will be earning interest on the money.

It would be interesting to see what happened if someone loaded the card with a modest amount immediately before each holiday and spent the balance inside of a week each time. But, for the sake of a pound or two, I'm not inclined to risk it.