Paying 0% interest on ATM withdrawal Halifax Clarity ?

jackieblack

SuperHan wrote: »

You may find that the credit is applied to statemented transactions first,

Yes, it is

SuperHan wrote: »

manually clearing the balance before you go away then paying off cash transactions as soon as they appear/are made is the best way to minimise the cost.

Exactly right

NoviceAngel

Thanks to all for your in depth knowledge on this, with all the help received, I'll pay the outstanding balance manually before I go away, and then transfer money into my Clarity account as I withdraw overseas.

It's not a problem to clear my balance, because I normally only spend £300 per month (for the £5) then clear my balance by monthly DD.

Thanks to the all the money saving community,

Cheers,

NoviceAngel

YorkshireBoy

rjhfandclf wrote: »

...Halifax always applies any such payments made towards balances b/f before cash w/d - which comes second. I complained about this to Halifax

To be fair, they don't hide that fact (and they're not alone in operating this way)...

Halifax_Clarity_T&Cs wrote:

6. ALLOCATION OF PAYMENTS

6.1 - 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.


http://www.halifax.co.uk/creditcards/help-guidance/terms-and-conditions/clarity-card/

...so you knew about it before applying for the card (or should have known).


MBNA, on the other hand, and much berated on here, operate the more favourable policy of lumping together both statemented and unstatemented transactions before allocating your payment.

rjhfandclf

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

To be fair, they don't hide that fact (and they're not alone in operating this way)......so you knew about it before applying for the card (or should have known).

I was indeed aware of the Ts&Cs and I checked them again before contacting Halifax. If you re-read the term you quote, it is ambiguous and does not clearly state what you infer. It states that "... use any payments you make to pay off Transactions that appear on your statement", with no reference to any balances brought forward having first call. The order of application of payments places cash withdrawals first - with the obvious implication.

The more relevant element of your/Halifax's quote (to the OP, and to me) is the second shown in bold, referring to the application of additional funds above the "amount due", where it reiterates the same order of application. These were the very points I made to Halifax, and they agreed that it was confusing and would look into it.

I have to say that I have found them very user-friendly. ... Although I claim absolutely no credit for it, at the same time, I made the suggestion that it was ridiculous that as a largely web-based service, it was not possible to advise them online of proposed overseas travels. The girl I spoke to said she agreed and that she would place a formal request for this to be considered as an enhancement. Within a few weeks the facility was available online (although only for the first-named card - although I believe this will also be updated for other cards in due course).

One "con" against MBNA in addition to their fee rates is their very short credit period. Otherwise I have always found them very good and securety-conscious.

jackieblack

rjhfandclf wrote: »

use any payments you make to pay off Transactions that appear on your statement", with no reference to any balances brought forward having first call.

Or, "use any payments you make to pay off Transactions that appear on your statement"

The 'balances brought forward' are the transactions that were on the last statement.

Transactions which have already been statemented (not merely processed to your account) are repaid first before more recent transactions, made since the last statement was produced.
These transactions have not yet appeared on any statement so are not yet 'transactions which appear on your statement'.

chattychappy

I think YB's quoted section is completely clear and unambiguous.... It distinguishes between transactions which have appeared on a statement and those yet to appear. The former being the balance brought forward against which payments are applied first...

rjhfandclf

chattychappy wrote: »

I think YB's quoted section is completely clear and unambiguous.... It distinguishes between transactions which have appeared on a statement and those yet to appear. The former being the balance brought forward against which payments are applied first...

To all and sundry who admire the Halifax small print, I disagree completely ... and since Halifax also agreed with me that it was not clear, I rest my case. They certainly won't gain the Crystal Mark for their Ts&Cs.

There is NO clear referenced distinction between past transactions shown as a balance brought forward and current statement transactions; and, there is no reference to past statements in the term "We use any payments you make to pay off Transactions that appear on your statement". This simply implies the current statement. The balance brought forward is from a historic statement. "Transactions" are a list of individual items; "balance brought forward" is a single accumulation of previous transactions, without any detail on the current statement and unmentioned in the text quoted.

There is a third statement in this matter and that is the list of "unstatemented" (urgh!) transactions. One of the main purposes of the OP (and my own interest) was to seek to avoid interest on such cash transactions (referred to by jackieblack as "... not yet 'transactions which appear on your statement'"). Since this is an online facility, all such transactions appear online in a "draft" statement within a day or two of payment, and as said at the beginning of my comment - which I had hoped would be more helpful than appears to be the case from the returns - it is quite possible with some uneconomic effort (in my view) to minimise such interest.

I very seldom comment on fora, largely because the plot so frequently gets lost in semantics. It is evident that most appear to understand the OP, and the OP seems happy with the responses given. I for one now intend to leave it at that!

fifeken

You (I?) can't pay the Halifax Clarity using the Faster Payments system, so if you really want to squeeze the last pennies out of the transaction you can either pay in advance and try to get the timing right, or transfer from another Halifax account, which is instantaneous.

I still have an old Halifax Electron card account from when they were the goto card for avoiding booking fees on Low Cost airlines.

YorkshireBoy

fifeken wrote: »

You (I?) can't pay the Halifax Clarity using the Faster Payments system, so if you really want to squeeze the last pennies out of the transaction you can either pay in advance and try to get the timing right, or transfer from another Halifax account, which is instantaneous.

Sorry if I've misunderstood your opening sentence, but you (and I, and anyone else) can use the FP system from any non-Halifax bank to make a payment to the card. The sort code and account number are on the statement.

But even if it's not "instantaneous" it doesn't matter, since you're not charged interest until the cash withdrawal is posted to your account...not from the date of the withdrawal itself which many people assume....which may be some 1-3 days or so after the withdrawal.

fifeken

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

Sorry if I've misunderstood your opening sentence, but you (and I, and anyone else) can use the FP system from any non-Halifax bank to make a payment to the card. The sort code and account number is on the statement.

But even if it's not "instantaneous" it doesn't matter, since you're not charged interest until the cash withdrawal is posted to your account...not from the date of the withdrawal itself which many people assume....which may be some 1-3 days or so after the withdrawal.

When I pay my Halifax Clarity from my (non Halifax) current account, it takes a few days for the money to get there, which I understood (perhaps wrongly) to be due to it not being a Faster Payment. I wasn't sure if that was down to Halifax or the paying bank, hence my question mark.

I realise the withdrawal also doesn't post for a few days, but the two issues combined give me the "timing'' problem. Too early and the payment may be returned, too late and some interest may acccrue.

I know we're now down to minimal amounts, but I'd like to understand what exactly is happening or if something needs improved from my side.