Basic questions about credit cards

liamck

Hello,
I have a few big expenses coming up and I'm considering getting a credit card to put them on. Have never really had one on the past, and have a few questions...

1. Can I pay a loan/mortgage through direct debit/whatever the equivalent for a credit card is? Currently using my debit card for this. I'm not Talking about paying the whole thing off just about if I can switch payment from debit card to credit card?

2. Looking at the Amex BA card, do many places other than big retail shops accept amex? I quite like the sound of it however I can't see how practical it is to actually use.

3. I'm quite keen to benefit from rewards/cashback, anyone have any advice on which card is best? Tesco CC looks quite good.

Thanks in advance

Sandtree

1) Equivalent is a Continuous Payment Authority. Most lenders won't accept credit cards for payments plus the second consideration is if the credit card company consider it a "purchase" or "cash advance"; the later typically attracts additional fees and interest

2) Depends where you live, in London there are few places that don't accept it and the most common are the likes of coronerships. Even places like markets and food trucks tend to use things like Square, SumUp or Zettle all of which take AmEx

3) Plenty of articles about the different reward cards out there but AmEx tend to be the most generous and then a case of selecting the fallback card for the minority of places that don't accept

eddddy

liamck said:

1. Can I pay a loan/mortgage through direct debit/whatever the equivalent for a credit card is? Currently using my debit card for this. I'm not Talking about paying the whole thing off just about if I can switch payment from debit card to credit card?

Most mortgage lenders won't allow this on principle. Essentially because you'd be running up a debt with the credit card company, to pay off a debt with the mortgage company.  There's a risk that people paying their mortgage by credit card are getting into deep financial problems.

(I know that you only want to do it to earn rewards - but that's the reason that you probably can't.)

There's also the issue that the fee your mortgage lender pays for accepting your credit card will be more than the value of your rewards. (Essentially, your rewards comes out of the fee the lender would pay for accepting your payment.)  So if your lender accepted credit cards, they would have higher costs, which would result in increased mortgage prices to customers. So overall, customers are likely to be worse off.

eskbanker

Sandtree said:

in London there are few places that don't accept it and the most common are the likes of coronerships

Don't suppose many people need to pay coroners, by any method!  Corner shops, on the other hand....

Brie

If you have some big expenses coming up I'd suggest you find a card that has a 0% purchase deal that goes well into the future.  Being able to spread payments over a few months while not paying any interest might well be more profitable for you then cashback or rewards.

Sandtree

eskbanker said:

Sandtree said:

in London there are few places that don't accept it and the most common are the likes of coronerships

Don't suppose many people need to pay coroners, by any method!  Corner shops, on the other hand....

Clearly you haven't been to the east end of London... coroner shops are very popular for ensure those hit and runs, stabbings etc get recorded as natural causes