Paying in full, wait for the bill or pay off as and when?

collins74

It was 5% up to £3k, 1% between £3k and £10k, then 1.25% over the £10k.  Honestly not sure the total I spent but it was significant as you suggest.  Put all spending on it and the CB is net of the annual fee.   The point is that using my debit card as suggested here would have meant I didn’t get this reward and even without the promotion this year of 5% on spend up to £3k it makes sense to keep using it v the debit card.  Also the protection is there on higher purchases.p and not on debit cards.

born_again

Zellah said:

born_again said:

collins74 said:

However my point is that if lenders use the same criteria as the credit ref agency in terms of utilisation, then this could mean you do not get accepted for certain types of credit?

I think the scores are used by the credit ref agencies as a sales/marketing tool.

All any lender will look at is what you owe (in total) against what you earn. Not that you are only using x% of any available credit on a card.

In fact what you are doing, is a good way for them to drop your limit. To reduce their risk, as it is clear you do not need such a high limit.
Yes I know many won't but some will (Barclaycard being one)

Paying off a CC as you spend is pointless, as the whole point of a CC is the X days interest free credit. If you would rather pay as you spend, then you may as well just use your debit card.

Since when does paying by a debit card offer S75 protection?

It does not. But you do have exactly the same chargeback rights. 
if you are purchasing something expensive then just pay a small amount on the CC for S75 protection.

Given that a lot of people saying they do it, are doing it for cashback, then odds on it is for small & out of S75 criteria anyway. Such as petrol or food shopping.

In true MSE style you would transfer what you had spent to a savings account to earn some interest, rather than give it to the CC co
But as a rough guide S75 accounts for around 1 in thousands of disputes raised.

Fighter1986

Deleted_User said:

Chino said:

Ebe_Scrooge said:

but you do then lose out on the benefit of building up a favourable credit history, as the card will be reported on your files as not being used.

Hardly. As the monthly payment amounts are reported by lenders to credit reference agencies, if a lender sees that someone has credit card statement balances of zero yet is still making monthly repayments, it's crystal clear what's happening.

Rubbish, credit card companies don't report the amount you are paying, they simply report the card was paid off in full, minimum or sometimes as a special rate for BT cards. All 3 of my credit reports over 4 cards show that, they do not show the amount. If OP pays the balance before statement is generated, the card will report to the CRA that there was no balance at month end

Some credit card companies provide limited information to credit reference agencies, some provide a more detailed report. It depends on the lender.

My Zopa credit card reports how much the statement balance was, how much I spent, how much I paid off, and what my current balance is. It also states how many cash withdrawls I've made, whether I'm on a promotional rate, and whether or not I paid the minimum: