Clarity Card Abroad - Paying off Refundable deposit

Mr_Ben

Hi

I've acquired a Clarity card for use during a two week trip abroad, with the intention of paying off withdrawals and payments straight away online.

I used the card to pay a room deposit for the hotel, of around £80. If I pay off the deposit this will 'load' the card when the deposit is refunded, which seems to be a no-no.

Does anyone have any tips or should I just take the hit on interest?

Thanks

bsms1147

It should be fine since refunds usually get treated slightly differently. I've carried a positive balance because of one before and nothing came of it.

You might also want to consider how much interest you would pay if you didn't pay the balance off straight away. After a month it would only be about a pound.

SuperHan

Pay off and the refund will be fine - it's not considered the same as loading.

A quick phone call to them and they will refund the deposit to your bank account too, or just continue spending on the card to clear the £80.

dzug1

Just to emphasise what the previous posters have said - refunds don't 'load' the card

lisyloo

Don't get too panicky about interest.
It's 1% per month or 0.5% for 2 weeks.
This is really small and will probably be less than the price of a coffee.

I know this is a money saving site, but it's not worth getting anxious about and certinaly not worth paying for internet.
It's still a lot cheaper than other forms of changing money.

If I'm on a cruise ship where satellite internet is extortionate, then I simply sort it out when I get back. I've never paid more than £3.

SuperHan

Mr_Ben wrote: »

Hi

I've acquired a Clarity card for use during a two week trip abroad, with the intention of paying off withdrawals and payments straight away online.

I missed this bit on my first read.

It's only worth paying off cash withdrawals. You don't need to pay off payments straight away, only after the statement is issued do you need to pay off purchases.

chattychappy

SuperHan wrote: »

I missed this bit on my first read.

It's only worth paying off cash withdrawals. You don't need to pay off payments straight away, only after the statement is issued do you need to pay off purchases.

It depends. If you have statemented purchases and an unstatemented cash withdrawal, then any payment you send will probably pay off the purchases first and interest will continue to run on the cash.

If both are statemented (or both unstatemented) and the interest rate is the same on both, then they might apply the payment to the transaction that happened first rather than necessarily the cash first. Indeed they might do this anyway in the case of unstatemented transactions (ie regardless of interest rate).

zagfles

chattychappy wrote: »

It depends. If you have statemented purchases and an unstatemented cash withdrawal, then any payment you send will probably pay off the purchases first and interest will continue to run on the cash.

Yes. Statemented items are always paid before unstatemented.

If both are statemented (or both unstatemented) and the interest rate is the same on both, then they might apply the payment to the transaction that happened first rather than necessarily the cash first. Indeed they might do this anyway in the case of unstatemented transactions (ie regardless of interest rate).

No, the Clarity is clear that cash advances are paid first if both are statemented or both unstatemented. See http://www.halifax.co.uk/creditcards/low-rate-no-fee/clarity-card/terms/

Though you have to make sure the cash advance has hit the account before paying it off.

chattychappy

zagfles wrote: »

Yes. Statemented items are always paid before unstatemented.

No, the Clarity is clear that cash advances are paid first if both are statemented or both unstatemented. See http://www.halifax.co.uk/creditcards/low-rate-no-fee/clarity-card/terms/

Though you have to make sure the cash advance has hit the account before paying it off.

I don't think it says that, though the result is as you say. Within statemented or unstatemented, cash advances are ONLY paid first if the interest rate is the same or higher (which, of course, is usually the case).

To be precise... at 6.1 it says that statemented balances are paid before unstatemented balances. Within each, higher rate balances are paid before lower balances. If the rate is the same, then cash is paid before purchases.

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.

My advice was meant to be a bit more generic, probably a mistake in a thread specifically on Clarity.

zagfles

chattychappy wrote: »

I don't think it says that, though the result is as you say. Within statemented or unstatemented, cash advances are ONLY paid first if the interest rate is the same or higher (which, of course, is usually the case).

To be precise... at 6.1 it says that statemented balances are paid before unstatemented balances. Within each, higher rate balances are paid before lower balances. If the rate is the same, then cash is paid before purchases.

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.

My advice was meant to be a bit more generic, probably a mistake in a thread specifically on Clarity.

Yes... though it could be argued that the interest rate on unstatemented purchases is always zero - since you can't pay them off until you've paid the previous statement in full.

But in any case, unless the interest on cash is ever lower than the interest on purchases (highly unlikely), unstatemented cash will always be paid before unstatemented purchases as you say.

chattychappy

Thanks to your link, on an impulse, I finally got around to applying for a Clarity card today. Afterall, I've recommended it enough times! This is the first time I've been in the UK long enough to get one sorted since it came out. It will be a handy supplement to my Zero/Barclaycard/PO Mastercard/Nationwide Select combo, particularly for cash.

The online application was accepted with "estimated" limit of £9600, FWIW.