Tesco Credit Card Help

confused.com2

Good afternoon, 

Please can anybody clarify if possible, I may just be being a bit thick which is possible!

I have a Tesco credit card, have a 0% balance transfer which I'm slowly clearing. Last month I used the card for a pair of glasses that I had to order online. The transaction is showing with interest of £1.40 added, yet the back of the statement says up to 56 days interest free (hasn't been 56 days since I bought them) is this because I had an outstanding (balance transfer transaction) from the previous month?

I assume when I pay my credit card this month (I'll pay enough to clear the glasses transaction) the payment will be put towards this as its obviously a higher APR than my 0% transfer? So next month no interest as they'll only be my 0% offer on the card left?

Hope that makes sense!
Thank you.

[Deleted User]

Up to means "up to", not "you will get". The 56 days thing refers to time between purchase and when the item needs to be paid for

E.g. statement is produced 13/6/21, you spend that day
Next statement is produced 13/7/21 and the item appears, the bill is due for payment say 2/8/21
You get 50 days interest free

You can game it to get the total 56 but it's not that common

With cards that have BT offers, the card provider should allocate the payments to the balance that has the highest APR (in this case the purchase) but it will depend on whether you paid before or after the statement is created - if you paid before the statement is created, the money goes to the BT and then the next payment the month after goes to the glasses, meaning you pay interest. One or two providers allocate money to the oldest balance regardless which can catch you out. 

Trailing interest can last a month or two.

It's always best to buy on a "clean" card rather than use one with a BT 

confused.com2

Thank you! 

No I haven't paid yet, the statement was created on Monday, I'll pay the purchase amount off in full tomorrow. The interest is only going to be pence if it does carry over to next month so I'm not overly concerned. I paid for the glasses exactly 7 days before the statement was produced and interest had already been included so I just wanted clarification about the 56 days interest free which clearly I've not been given!  Thank you.

Dobbibill

You only get an interest free period of up to 56 days if you clear your balance in full. 
As you are running a 0% offer on the same card and clearing it slowly you will incur a small amount of interest on the purchase on both the 1st & 2nd statement produced after the purchase.  

yksi

^^ It's this explanation. In this case it wasn't actually about allocating a payment to the highest rate. You can and would get up to 56 days interest free on the purchase itself and where it's max-56, you'll always get at minimum 26 days, because that's the shortest gap between purchase-statement-duedate. So it's always interest-free from the time you buy until the next statement's due date and no interest would be charged if you pay it off by the due date. It was undone by the fact that you didn't clear the card balance in full on that day, you still had your BT on the card. When the due date comes and goes and the balance isn't down to 0, they fall back on their Terms and Conditions which state when the "up to 56 days" does not apply - that is, you get backcharged interest right from the day you spent on the glasses.

Never use the same card for a 0% BT and also for spending - they will almost all catch you out like this (I seem to remember there's only one mainstream account that is specifically designed for both kinds of interest-free use).

confused.com2

Thank you, yes lesson learnt. It's only a pound or so interest so not the end of the world but I'll learn going forward!