Halifax Clarity Credit Card - Cash Withdrawal limit??

Doshwaster

Butterscotch- wrote: »

Sorry for threadjack...

I have a $ Caxton card but would I be much better off getting a Clarity card? I expect to use it to pay for the hotels in advance as well as purchases and cash over there.

I'm a recent convert from the Caxton cards (I have £, $ and € ones and still keep them as a backup) to Clarity. With Caxton you have to guess how much to load onto the card and then withdrawing any left over at the end of your trip can be expensive. With Clarity you you pay for what you spend. In addition, if you are booking flights and hotels on the card you get better protection by using a credit card.

With Caxton you take a risk on the exchange rate when you load. With Clarity you pay the daily rate.

NiftyDigits

Innys1 wrote: »

Thanks all for your responses to date to my post above.

I am planning to travel to Thailand in mid Feb and have heard that even cash withdrawals on the Halifax Clarity incur an immediate ATM charge of around £3. Does anyone know if this is true?

Thanks in advance.

It's £3.60 and nothing to do with the card. Don't use the ATM, withdraw over the bank counter.

javierrio

Halifax Clarity says that they would charge you interest on cash withdrawals but no interest on purchases, right?
Let’s say that I purchase stuff for up to £200 abroad and after being there for a couple of weeks I decide to get some cash from the ATM, say £100.
If on this very same day I go online and transfer to the card £100 from my UK bank account, would I be charged for the cash withdrawal at the end of the month?
In other words, does the previous £200 in purchases interfere with the cash withdrawal? (i.e. I would need to pay the whole £200 + £100 = £300 if I don’t want to get charged)
Any thoughts or experiences on this?
Cheers

lpgm

javierrio wrote: »

Let’s say that I purchase stuff for up to £200 abroad and after being there for a couple of weeks I decide to get some cash from the ATM, say £100.
If on this very same day I go online and transfer to the card £100 from my UK bank account, would I be charged for the cash withdrawal at the end of the month?
In other words, does the previous £200 in purchases interfere with the cash withdrawal? (i.e. I would need to pay the whole £200 + £100 = £300 if I don’t want to get charged)

They will very nicely pay off your cash withdrawals first before your purchases, minimising the interest (but see zagfles's post about statements below). They explain this quite clearly in the terms and conditions.

Personally, I wait for the cash withdrawal to show up in my account first before making the payment - this'll be a day or two after you actually take the cash out. Paying before it appears is probably 'pre-loading', and they don't start charging interest until it appears anyway.

AMG762

NiftyDigits wrote: »

It's £3.60 and nothing to do with the card. Don't use the ATM, withdraw over the bank counter.

If you withdraw over the counter are you still restricted to the £500 daily limit?

zagfles

javierrio wrote: »

Halifax Clarity says that they would charge you interest on cash withdrawals but no interest on purchases, right?
Let’s say that I purchase stuff for up to £200 abroad and after being there for a couple of weeks I decide to get some cash from the ATM, say £100.
If on this very same day I go online and transfer to the card £100 from my UK bank account, would I be charged for the cash withdrawal at the end of the month?
In other words, does the previous £200 in purchases interfere with the cash withdrawal? (i.e. I would need to pay the whole £200 + £100 = £300 if I don’t want to get charged)
Any thoughts or experiences on this?
Cheers

Depends.

For a start, you should wait until the cash withdrawal shows up online, if it hasn't they might use it towards the purchases. So give it a day or 2.

Secondly, if a statement date has occurred between the purchases and cash withdrawal, the payment will always go towards the statemented balance (ie the purchases) before the unstatemented cash withdrawal. So you'd need to pay the full £300 to stop interest.

zagfles

lpgm wrote: »

They will very nicely pay off your cash withdrawals first before your purchases, minimising the interest. They explain this quite clearly in the terms and conditions.

But see my PP - they also say that statemented items are paid before unstatemented, and this trumps the cash/purchases order of payments.

Doshwaster

AMG762 wrote: »

If you withdraw over the counter are you still restricted to the £500 daily limit?

It would be quite an interesting challenge to try to spend £500 in a day in Thailand.

I don't like carrying too much cash around with me so I tend only to take out 5,000 BHT at a time. The ATM fee is a pain and I try to do over the counter withdrawals but I always seem to run out of money when the banks are closed.