Halifax, part of the Lloyds Bank Group, unable to take a credit card payment for home insurance!

Gooner_AJ

My house and contents insurance is up for renewal so, in good MSE fashion, I went through a comparison web site to get some quotes. Halifax came up with a very attractive offer so I followed the link to provide more information. I added the additional home emergency and legal services options to the quote....and the ability to pay by credit card or debit card online got removed!. The web site said that as these were provided by a third party only a bank account direct debit instruction could be done online (and that this would also trigger auto-renewal when the policy expired). If I wanted to pay by credit or debit card, it gave a number to ring to do this by phone. When I tried this, the message said that because of the current [covid] situation, their offices were closed so could not be done. I had an exchange with HalifaxBank on twitter and, despite trying a few things, they confirmed that I had no option other than to do the direct debit. This means missing out on a few week's worth of credit, loyalty points from the card issuer and a bit of cashback Needless to say, I am looking elsewhere. BUT, it does seem strange that Halifax, part of Lloyds, one of our biggest and longest established banks, cannot take credit cards online!

csgohan4

Their policies their rules, go elsewhere as your doing, not your problem their restrictive in their payments

General_Grant

Gooner_AJ said:

My house and contents insurance is up for renewal so, in good MSE fashion, I went through a comparison web site to get some quotes. Halifax came up with a very attractive offer so I followed the link to provide more information. I added the additional home emergency and legal services options to the quote....and the ability to pay by credit card or debit card online got removed!. The web site said that as these were provided by a third party only a bank account direct debit instruction could be done online (and that this would also trigger auto-renewal when the policy expired). If I wanted to pay by credit or debit card, it gave a number to ring to do this by phone. When I tried this, the message said that because of the current [covid] situation, their offices were closed so could not be done. I had an exchange with HalifaxBank on twitter and, despite trying a few things, they confirmed that I had no option other than to do the direct debit. This means missing out on a few week's worth of credit, loyalty points from the card issuer and a bit of cashback Needless to say, I am looking elsewhere. BUT, it does seem strange that Halifax, part of Lloyds, one of our biggest and longest established banks, cannot take credit cards online!

BUT the story shows they CAN take credit cards online - your story is that they were not taking card payment on line for the specific optional additions you wanted.