Paying off a purchase on a 0% balance transfer card

Jack91

Hi,

I have a Tesco credit card which is 0% on balance transfers, but not interest free for purchases. I recently made a £500 purchase on the 11th November, and paid £500 back on the 12th November, as well as the minimum payment on the 16th November. I’ve been charged interest every month since and have called Tesco who made out I was stupid and didn’t understand how credit cards work, and told me that I had made the payment back too early!! They said it had paid off my balance transfer debt and not the purchase balance and I’d therefore be paying interest until another £500 has been paid off, surely this isn’t right?

Willing2Learn

Did you wait until the £500 purchase transaction appeared on your statement before making the £500 repayment to your card provider?

Jack91

No I just paid the amount I had spent on the card back the next day

Willing2Learn

Sorry Jack91, you needed to wait until the transaction was statemented before making the repayment. Otherwise, the intended repayment would go toward reducing the balance transfer amount, which would have been the total amount due in the statement for November (£500 transaction not included).

Dobbibill

Hi Jack - welcome to the forum.

Payments are allocated in a specific order on statemented transactions. While transacctions are pending they do not get paid off with the credit unless there is nothing else on the CC.

Tesco are correct on this.

molerat

Jack91 wrote: »

No I just paid the amount I had spent on the card back the next day

The majority of cards will allocate this way. From Tesco T&Cs

We always use your payments to pay off items which
have appeared on a statement you have received before
paying off items which haven't yet appeared on your
statement.

Jack91

Urgh, well doesn’t really seem fair, but thanks for your replies.