Credit card - balance payment before/after statement date

OceanSound

redux wrote: »

Is that £2903 the statement balance or real-time?

If it consists of for example £2600 on the last statement and £303 spending since then, I would pay the £2600 tomorrow or the next day (during the weekend might count it as arriving Monday), wait for the £303 to appear on the next statement in due course, pay that by next due date as normal.

But it probably doesn't matter much. For "building credit history", I'd imagine that the reduced overall borrowing is more significant than splitting hairs about the precise day it happened.

I had made two further purchases transactions since the statement date (on 24 October 2018).

One for £191.60 on 29 October, the other for £115.13 on 01 November.

My November statement has just been produced. Suffice to say M&S bank credit card statement is really sparse on info, however, from the 'next month's estimated interest' i can figure out that the two purchases transactions will not enjoy the interest free period you mention.

For example, if I were to wait till the payment due date of 20 December (to pay £306.73 (£191.60 + £115.13)), M&S bank will slap me with around £4.40 interest.

BTW, I've already paid around £17.08 interest in August because three transactions had gone through as cash transactions. I only became aware when the statement was produced. Then there was few days exchanging secure messages to resolve, which meant those three transactions (and the interest) continued to accrue interest. That resulted in a further £5.88 interest charge in September.

Forgive me for splitting hairs, but this ones turned out to be a real turkey (just the headache of dealing with m&S bank support). If it wasn't for the £20 Voucher (which I still haven't received) I doubt it's even been worth it. (except for M&S Purchases points and commission free travel money (which I'm yet to utilise)).

redux

OceanSound wrote: »

I had made two further purchases transactions since the statement date (on 24 October 2018).

One for £191.60 on 29 October, the other for £115.13 on 01 November.

My November statement has just been produced. Suffice to say M&S bank credit card statement is really sparse on info, however, from the 'next month's estimated interest' i can figure out that the two purchases transactions will not enjoy the interest free period you mention.

For example, if I were to wait till the payment due date of 20 December (to pay £306.73 (£191.60 + £115.13)), M&S bank will slap me with around £4.40 interest.

BTW, I've already paid around £17.08 interest in August because three transactions had gone through as cash transactions. I only became aware when the statement was produced. Then there was few days exchanging secure messages to resolve, which meant those three transactions (and the interest) continued to accrue interest. That resulted in a further £5.88 interest charge in September.

Forgive me for splitting hairs, but this ones turned out to be a real turkey (just the headache of dealing with m&S bank support). If it wasn't for the £20 Voucher (which I still haven't received) I doubt it's even been worth it. (except for M&S Purchases points and commission free travel money (which I'm yet to utilise)).

Several months interest on a balance gradually increasing to £3000 might be £100 to £300, depending on rate and offer length, so that 0% offer may have saved a bit more than £20.

Interest predictions on a statement are usually based on an assumption this is what happens if the balance is not fully paid off.

If those 2 fairly new transactions only just appeared on the most recent statement (couple of days ago), and unless they are also cash, they won't incur interest if paid off by the due date. This is standard terms and conditions, nothing to do with balance transfer offers.

Did you pay off the £2600 as I suggested? If not do it as much and as soon as possible, as this is incurring interest.

If you won't believe my advice, ring them up to check, and if they do insist the £300 would incur interest after all, you could save all bar a few pence by paying it back today.

Mildmanneredman

My partner called virgin and they took a second previous address as the system only allowed one..said they will be in touch invthe next few days...

So I decided to apply for an aqua card myself, did credit club scored 95%. Went through to their site, did a checker got 99%, then actually applied, it actually said accepted, so I read the docs, then tixked the electronic signature box and clicked to accept the offer, then suddenly got the following page:

'Problem:

We are sorry but something happened when we tried to process your last action please try again or come back later'

Of course there was no button to try again!

Now what? No idea if its gone through or if I should do it again, I presume my acceptence hasnt gone through but I will now have a hard search record..gods sake!

OceanSound

Mildmanneredman wrote: »

....Now what? No idea if its gone through or if I should do it again, I presume my acceptence hasnt gone through but I will now have a hard search record..gods sake!

Before applying again or applying elsewhere, check your credit file. you can do this by joining MSE credit club. You may still need to check with the other two major credit file companies (I believe MSE credit club uses Experian).

If the aqua (should be listed as 'NewDay' on creditfile) is on there as a hard search, contact AQUA and ask that they remove it.

Note that the Free tools (MSE Credit club, Clearscore etc.) only pull your data from Credit reference agencies once a month, so the NewDay entry may take a while to appear. IF you join the Experian or Equifax directly, you can see entries pretty much instantly.

Edit: I just seen your other posts. Seems you were accepted for both Virgin and Aqua. Looks like you didn't re-apply. For anyone having the same issue, it's generally not a good idea to try applying again if you encounter a technical issue.

OceanSound

redux wrote: »

........
If you won't believe my advice, ring them up to check, and if they do insist the £300 would incur interest after all, you could save all bar a few pence by paying it back today.

I didn't ring them up. Just paid off as much as I could down to £474.71, that was the Statement balance on 25 November.

On statement I was charged £0.45 (2 days interest for £474.71- by my calculations). I've talked about this on another thread:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/57389063#44

Then on 26 November I paid off £474.71. So, there should be 1 days interest for 474.71 in next months statement. A few pence probably. But with M&S Bank cannot always tell if it will be 0.5 days, 1 day or 1.5 days. (They seem to calculate interest by 0.5 day)

I still don't know how last months statement charged me 2 days interest when the 0% offer ended on 25 November (the same as the statement date).