How do you get your credit card direct debit to work for you (D/D interest criteria)?

JustAnotherSaver

When Tesco savers stopped doing their direct debits everyone had to look to other ways to generate direct debits for their various accounts (Club Lloyds, BOS Vantage, so on & so forth).


I'm not so bad because i have bills so i don't really have an issue but my brother & sister were relying on credit cards to help generate. Only thing is that they didn't always work.


So they'll spend on the card & then not use it. Say they spend on it in May. For some reason the direct debit may then not be taken until July, totally skipping June and meaning the current account it's linked to doesn't pay out interest that month. That's happened a few times.


How do you work them so that this doesn't happen?

[Deleted User]

Use the credit card?????

masonic

I just made sure I used my card soon after each statement so that the transaction was sure to show up on the next. I no longer have this problem, though, because I've ditched most of the accounts requiring DDs after the benefits have been repeatedly slashed.

Terry_Towelling

This is probably because the credit card direct debit date moves about - so to speak.

Credit cards usually only bill/statement on a working day, so if yours bills on Day 1 (1st working day of the month) that could be on 1st calendar day of the month but could be 3rd, 4th or 5th calendar day due to weekends and bank hols.

You then get up to 25 days from the date you are billed to pay. So, the direct debit date (which itself can also be affected by weekends and bank holidays) will vary and can miss statement months with those banks who statement on the 'monthiversary' of account opening rather than on a calendar month basis.

What you need to do is alter the date your credit card is billed to make sure the payment due date does not fall around the current account 'monthiversary' date. Most credit card companies will allow you to do this but make sure you get it right first time because some will only let you do it once a year.

I had this problem with a Tesco current account that paid my Barclaycard by direct debit.

Katiehound

I have a Barclaycard which pays me £1 in Blue Rewards each month (if used) and a DD to pay it with Barclays which pays me Blue Rewards too! (Soon to be doubled) I try to spend on the CC within a couple of days of the CC statement.
I have managed a year without a hiccup (so far, hope I haven't jinxed it now) It's worth £8 after all.........

aau1

paypal is an easy DD to set up

PRAISETHESUN

I'd recommend contacting your bank and changing your CC statement date to the start of the month - that way payment will always be taken by DD around the middle of the month, avoiding the issue where a month may be skipped. You will need to ensure that you make at least 1 CC transaction every month and to not manually pay the statement balance, otherwise there will be no balance to pay and a DD will not be pulled from your account.

Otherwise the thread below offers a few good ideas for ways to artificially generate DDs: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5734632/savings-accounts-accepting-dds&page=1

Terry_Towelling

PRAISETHESUN wrote: »

I'd recommend contacting your bank and changing your CC statement date to the start of the month - that way payment will always be taken by DD around the middle of the month, avoiding the issue where a month may be skipped. You will need to ensure that you make at least 1 CC transaction every month and to not manually pay the statement balance, otherwise there will be no balance to pay and a DD will not be pulled from your account.

Otherwise the thread below offers a few good ideas for ways to artificially generate DDs: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5734632/savings-accounts-accepting-dds&page=1

This is indeed part of the answer (as I mentioned in my post). My Barclaycard bills on the first day of the month but the current account servicing the direct debit payment was a Tesco account. Those current accounts work on the 'monthiversary' statement cycle and mine came on 27th of the month. My Barclaycard direct debit varied between 26th and 30th of the month, so I still missed out on a direct debit payment in some Tesco statement cycles and ended up with 2 direct debits to Barclaycard in the following cycle.


It's a case of looking at all the variables.

soulsaver

Take out an interest free CC. Set it up to pay the min (usually£5) by DD each month; make a significant, say £100, purchase on it = good to go for 20 months.

Make sure you don't exceed the interest free term, then pay it off, rinse & repeat..

Terry_Towelling

soulsaver wrote: »

Take out an interest free CC. Set it up to pay the min (usually£5) by DD each month; make a significant, say £100, purchase on it = good to go for 20 months.

Make sure you don't exceed the interest free term, then pay it off, rinse & repeat..

Yes, but this isn't really addressing the problem of the direct debit missing some months due to statementing timings.

soulsaver

Terry_Towelling wrote: »

Yes, but this isn't really addressing the problem of the direct debit missing some months due to statementing timings.

That would be true if that is the only potential problem.. and only partially resolved by a the establishment of a good statement date: If there's nothing to pay a DD wouldn't be created anyhow.

I read it as they spend on the cc after the cut off date for the current month, so the spend isn't included until the following month's statement and payment due the month after that, so skipping a DD.

Both issues are avoided by the method I use - there's always a balance to pay and the statement date is just a matter of initial timing or moving.