Ways to spend a lump sum on a special holiday

PhotoMan

Hi

I am looking for advice and wonder if anyone else has encountered and overcome a similar problem. I tired to post this on the credit card forum but kept getting a warning saying that I was posting on the "grabbit" forum, so am posting here instead. This is my first post so apologies if this is inappropriate.

I have just retired so have been paid a lump sum. However, we are having difficulty spending our own money! We wish to spend it on an expensive, once in a lifetime holiday, with lying down (expensive) airline seats and a holiday lasting a number of weeks. We currently have two credit cards, Halifax Clarity which has a credit limit of £12,000 and Nationwide cash reward which has a credit limit of £14,000. We telephoned the Halifax to ask for an increased credit limit but they would only allow us to increase it by £500. I suspect that the problem is that our monthly income is now a pension so it appears to their algorithm that we cannot afford a higher limit, but it does not take into account that we have a large, one off lump sum.

We have direct debits set up so that we always pay our monthly bill in full.

We can pay for the flights using our current account debit cards. But we wish to use the credit cards to pay for accomodation, and car hire and other expenses, over a couple of months. Hotels often "lock off" a sum of money greater than the accomodation that you don't get back until you have left and they know you have left the TV and bath towels behind. So we need to have more credit available on our cards than we currently have.

A number of years ago we paid a sum of money into a credit card account, putting it into a positive balance to increase the amount we could spend. But the credit card company then lost all record of this. Fortunately we were able to prove that we had made the payment but it was a real palaver getting it sorted out.

Things that we could do but do not want to do:
1. Internet/telephone banking due to accounts we have heard of banks blaming innocent customers when they are hacked/scammed and using this blame as an excuse for not reimbursing the customer.
2. Use a debit card to make payments abroad as there may be a charge and/or a poor exchange rate.
3. Use a pre-paid card. Travel ones are too limited - often cannot be used for car hire or petrol. And with all prepaid you need to load them with more money than needed to allow for the hotel to "lock off" an excess that we would not be able to use until we had left, leaving us with foreign currency on a card.

We would be happy to have a credit card that we had to pay a fee for, along the lines of American Express, but wonder whether this would allow us a higher credit limit or not?

Giving the increasing availabilty of long and expensive cruises we cannot be the first people to encounter this problem and wonder what others do.

Does anyone have any advice/experience that may help us to spend our own money!

Thank you.

chesky

Do you have close relations who would agree to pay for some of your expenditure on their credit cards, with you paying them via your bank account? How much are we talking about by the way. Could you spread some costs over a couple of months, which if you settle every month, might work.

chesky

Or get a couple more credit cards.

Alfrescodave

chesky wrote: »

Or get a couple more credit cards.

Considering all your "limitations", this would appear to be a possible solution although you would then have to handle additional cards with their associated risk of loosing them.

Personally I would pay off upfront as much of the flight/accomodation costs as possible which would then enable you to start your travels with maximum credit on your cards.

Have you actually costed out how much this holiday might be ? Your current cards might be sufficient if you prepay some of the costs.

chesky

I know they've dropped out of fashion, thanks to credit cards, but what about travellers cheques for your spending money?

comeandgo

Why are you wanting to use credit cards? If it is for the greater protection then you still get protection even if you only pay £100 on credit card and pay the balance with debit card.

chesky

How much are you planning to spend on this holiday? £26k is a pretty good sum, which is what you seem to have available to you right now. The couple of months before, pay everything by debit card, so you have the maximum credit on the cards. Hotels have safes where you can lodge either cash or travellers cheques. Pre pay your flights. Also car hire.

FabFifty

Pay the outstanding balance on your credit cards in full before going away and also set up a standing order to pay a specific sum of money to the credit cards every week whilst away to ensure that anything spent is paid off every few days, leaving you with full credit (& also some extra). It works - we've done it.

PhotoMan

Hmm. Interesting.

Katiehound

People pay for their long and expensive cruises up front, probably 90 days before it departs, not pay-as-you-go which seems to be what you are wanting.

Then generally if cruise is divided into sectors they settle their ship account every 3 or 4 weeks- so they are not needing huge credit allowance.If it's a very very expensive cruise it is pretty much all in- very few extras needed.

Katiehound

There is one more CC that you might consider- Saga. This is also commission free for purchases. (I think worldwide,but not sure as I no longer have one.)