Contactless supplementary credit card

alranson

Am hoping for some expert help/advice as none of the search tools seem to have filters for the very specific thing I need...
I am having to hire a nanny to look after my child because his nursery is closing down, and there's nowhere else that can cover my hours at work. She will be doing a lot of the shopping for me - things like their food, and his nappies. She will also be taking him on tubes and buses as I don't have a car.

Rather than give her petty cash and spend ages us messing about with weekly balances and receipts, I thought a better solution would be getting her a supplementary credit card which you can use contactlessly (for all the bus and tube fares). That way all spending is kept track of on the monthly statement. The plan would be to pay the whole balance off every month, so the rate isn't that important. Cashback or rewards would be nice, but if it involves paying an annual fee, then I'll pass. Finally, while I trust her, I think it is a good idea if the credit card has a relatively low spending limit - as she should never need to spend more than £500 a month in the course of her duties (and probably much less).

I have a few open credit cards already (as someone who has performed the Credit Card Shuffle successfully in the past):

I can't use my Amex for this, because although it is contactless, it has a high credit limit (as I sometimes need to use it for work purposes)and they tell me that I can't specify that credit limit to be lowered just for the supplementary card.

I have a Barclaycard Visa and a Barclaycard Mastercard, which are both contactless, but Barclaycard will only permit supplementary cards to be issued to family members or people who live at your address, and the nanny is neither.

I have a Halifax card and a JLP mastercard, which both allow supplementary cardholders who aren't family....but they are not contactless and when I rang them they said they could not issue me with a new contactless version.

So
1) Can anyone suggest a suitable option?
2) If I've got to apply for a whole new credit card, what should I do with the others? Only one has a balance on it at the moment - the rest have nothing (and mostly have high credit limits which I don't use), and the only ones I ever use for spending are the Amex and JLP. Should I shut them down, or reduce the credit limits, or leave them as they are?

MisterBaxter

Orange appear to be offering their contactless pre-paid card still. You load it up with cash and it can be used with chip and pin or contactless, it can be managed on line for tracking spend etc. I got one for our son, so far it seems to work in most places but I think there are places where it doesn't work. At the time it was the only one I could find that was contactless but others may do them now.

There are no credit checks and no chance of exceeding limits, missing payments or running up out of control debt.

im-lost

just let her use one of the existing cards, nobody will know any different, and nobody will give two hoots, when was the last time anybody checked that the user of a card has been the person named on it? i know nobody has ever queried mine.

seems like a load of faff getting another card and another line of credit, does it matter about giving her a card with a high credit limit? you trust her with your child but not to go spending money on a credit card? you may want to rethink your choice of nanny if this is the case.

personally id forget the credit card thing and just get something like http://cash.orange.co.uk/ and top it up with whatever credit card or cash etc you want her to use for the week.

or even just a new bank account with a contactless card, and chuck money in it whenever its needed, or one with a fee free overdraft like natwest.

SnowTiger

MisterBaxter wrote: »

Orange appear to be offering their contactless pre-paid card still.

Yes, it's still going. I received a text message from them telling me they were sending out a new card because mine is about to expire.

What with Orange morphing in to EE, which will probably be folded in to the BT empire, I'm a little surprised it's still going.

However, it's operated by a third party and I guess they have a contract in place that's due to run for a few more years.

whizzbee

Why not see if you can get a PayTag on either of your Barclaycards?

Designed to be a sticker that goes on your phone but is effectively just a separate contactless-only supplementary card.

tripled

Credit limits are a bit wooly - the card provider may let you (or indeed the nanny) go over, and/or offline transactions could also push the card (further) over limit even if the issuer is declining new transactions.

I'd suggest a pre-pay card as the way forward. No new credit line and limited risk.