Halifax Clarity Credit Card for Travelling

hollie.weimeraner

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

Or purchase everything. If you do still need cash one large ATM withdrawal to cover the full trip should do it.

Maximum Cash advance limits will apply

You can use your Halifax Clarity Credit Card or Halifax Rewards Clarity Credit Card to withdraw up to £500 per day from any cash machine in the world that has MasterCard logo.

agent177

Hi,

Sorry if this has been answered already (I don't think it has) but I had a question about how to minimise the interest charges on cash advances (small as they are).

If I had a £500 balance (say) from non-cash payments, and I then withdraw £100 from an ATM, how does Halifax distinguish between what's cash and not cash when I go to clear my balance?

In other words, if I wanted to immediately get rid of the 'cash bit' on my card, do I just need to pay off the £100 I withdrew (bringing me back down to £500), or will I continue to be charged interest until I clear the full £600 and my balance is zero?

chattychappy

hollie.weimeraner wrote: »

Maximum Cash advance limits will apply

You can use your Halifax Clarity Credit Card or Halifax Rewards Clarity Credit Card to withdraw up to £500 per day from any cash machine in the world that has MasterCard logo.

Indeed and sometimes a machine will apply a lower limit to Clarity - because of the type of card it is, the machine is running low, or some other reason.

agent177 wrote: »

Hi,

Sorry if this has been answered already (I don't think it has) but I had a question about how to minimise the interest charges on cash advances (small as they are).

If I had a £500 balance (say) from non-cash payments, and I then withdraw £100 from an ATM, how does Halifax distinguish between what's cash and not cash when I go to clear my balance?

In other words, if I wanted to immediately get rid of the 'cash bit' on my card, do I just need to pay off the £100 I withdrew (bringing me back down to £500), or will I continue to be charged interest until I clear the full £600 and my balance is zero?

This comes up often. Any payment you make will be applied to statemented transactions before unstatemented transactions. So if you have a balance on your previous statement (perhaps waiting for the DD to be taken), you cannot stop interest running on the cash advance unless you pay off the entire balance (statemented and unstatemented). It might be worth cancelling the DD in this case.

agent177

Ah ok, thanks - that makes sense.

What if I only had unstatenented transactions though? For example, say I go on holiday with a completely cleared balance. Then on Day 1 I spend £100 in a restaurant, On Day 2 I withdraw another £100 from an ATM. I understand that I'll immediately start to be charged interest on the cash advance, but if I then log in to the app and pay off £100 how will Halifax decide whether it's the cash advance I'm paying off (and so stop charging interest) or the first £100 in the restaurant (in which case the 'cash' bit's still there)?

YorkshireBoy

agent177 wrote: »

...how will Halifax decide whether it's the cash advance I'm paying off (and so stop charging interest) or the first £100 in the restaurant (in which case the 'cash' bit's still there)?

They'll refer to the 'allocation of payments' section in the T&Cs, as you could/should do.

Check out condition 6.1

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

adindas

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

They'll refer to the 'allocation of payments' section in the T&Cs, as you could/should do.

Check out condition 6.1

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

If I have a card such as Santander Credit with matching duration of 15 month 0% interest for Both Balance Transfer as well as Purchase.
http://www.santander.co.uk/uk/credit-cards/santander-credit-card

My understanding is that I will not pay any interest at all withi interest free period of 15 months as long as I make a minimum payment. Is it correct or I am missing something ??

southantrim3

In relation to the OP's original post...

I've been a long term user of the Halifax Clarity card. It's by far the best one to use abroad.
Been in Canada serveral times with it. You don't get charged a thing for purchases at all.

Tip for withdrawing cash is - download the Halifax banking app on to your phone / tablet before you go.
Anytime you withdraw cash, as long as you pay it back anytime before the end of that business day, you won't get charged any interest. If you don't then you'll get charged however long it is until you do pay it (daily.) Good incentive to use mobile banking.

Also used the card in Spain and Southern Ireland several times, again - no fees.

Hope this helps.

Edit... When using cash abroad make sure you get charged in the local currency as if you get charged in £GBP you might get charged but I think that's explained somewhere in the MSE site for all credit cards.

adindas

southantrim3 wrote: »

In relation to the OP's original post...

I've been a long term user of the Halifax Clarity card. It's by far the best one to use abroad.
.

One of the best, not the best.

This is due to its nature as a Credit Card which is mainly intended for purchase, and not cash withdrawal. So it will never be able to beat its counterpart, the Zero fee for foreign transaction Debit Card.

YorkshireBoy

southantrim3 wrote: »

Anytime you withdraw cash, as long as you pay it back anytime before the end of that business day, you won't get charged any interest. If you don't then you'll get charged however long it is until you do pay it (daily.)

Interest doesn't start to accrue until the transaction is posted to your account, ie you can see it listed in the recent transactions, so you could have up to 2-3 days grace. Not the end of the world if you can't get the transfer done the same day as the withdrawal.

madmikey

I've been looking through the T&Cs of this card. It states clearly there is no cash withdrawal fee. So if you put your card into credit before going abroad, it seems as long as you don't withdraw more than you deposited, you shouldn't even be charged any interest. Has anybody tried this? If it's possible, you would get a better exchange rate than practically anywhere else. I did this many years ago on the old Prudential Egg credit card and it worked.