Sainsbury's Bank Credit Card Payments

Umiamz

Can anybody with a Sainsbury's Bank credit card tell me what happens if you have a direct debit set up for the minimum payment but choose to manually pay extra each month. Do they still take the minimum by direct debit or do they count it as having been paid by the manual payment?

Thanks in advance...

MalMonroe

Hi, I have a Sainsbury's credit card.

With ANY credit card, including Sainsbury's, you can pay off as much or as little as you want at any time - if there is a direct debit agreement set up yes, they will still take that payment. (Unless, of course, the extra payments have actually paid off the whole balance.) It should say that in the small print, somewhere.

With my Sainsbury's card, I have the direct debit set up to clear the whole balance each month. It's never more than £50 though. 

If you are in a position to pay off more each month then why not just increase your monthly direct debit payments? It looks better on your credit reports, as then you don't look as if you can only afford the minimum monthly payment. It saves you all the bother of paying manually as well. It's usually really easy to revise your direct debit payments either online or on the app. 

Umiamz

Thanks - the reason I asked is that Barclaycard don't take the direct debit if you've additionally paid more than the amount due to be collected, so I wondered if Sainsbury's did something similar. I'd already thought about setting my own DD amount and that's what I'll probably do.

Regarding credit reports - can other lenders actually see how much you are paying towards a credit card balance? All three of my reports only show whether a payment has been made or not. Even if they can, surely paying an additional amount manually each month will be enough evidence that you can afford more...

Jami74

Yeah I've also got Barclays set up to take the minimum payment but always pay it when I get paid so the minimum payment isn't taken. I don't know about Sainsbury's as I always pay that one in full but I'm sure one time I made an extra payment mid (billing) month and it still took the payment.

I think as long as you are paying your credit card then that is all the matters Maybe it doesn't look so good if you are carrying a massive high interest balance and only paying minimum.

anna42hmr

many credit cards advise this on the back of their statemements under the ways to pay section, I don't have a Sainsbury's card any more so cannot recall sorry, but see if there is anything on the statutory information on the statement.

In cases where i have not been sure, I tend to set up a faster payment in advanced timed the day of or the day before the direct debit is due out of my account.  DD's generally are a 3 day collection basis and as such if i still want it to debit, i have done that as the claim is typically in process on the banking systems. 

surreysaver

I have a note on my spreadsheet that Sainsbury's still takes the direct debit even if you make additional payments.
This is according to my T&Cs, others may differ

Brie

Umiamz said:

Even if they can, surely paying an additional amount manually each month will be enough evidence that you can afford more...

While clearing your balance in full is best I don't believe that other providers can really see anything much even if they bother to look.  

As to what you can afford....I've been told I can't have a credit card as I already have too much credit, most of which I'm not currently using.  It's more to do with the ratio of reported income to reported credit available via all your cards, overdrafts etc.  The fact that I have a flexible mortgage which looks like a massive overdraft doesn't really help either.  

Umiamz

Brie said:

Umiamz said:

Even if they can, surely paying an additional amount manually each month will be enough evidence that you can afford more...

While clearing your balance in full is best I don't believe that other providers can really see anything much even if they bother to look.  

As to what you can afford....I've been told I can't have a credit card as I already have too much credit, most of which I'm not currently using.  It's more to do with the ratio of reported income to reported credit available via all your cards, overdrafts etc.  The fact that I have a flexible mortgage which looks like a massive overdraft doesn't really help either.  

Completely agree that clearing the balance each month is best (and I do that on all my other cards) but, as I said in the original post, this is a 0% for 21 months deal being used for a single, reasonably large, purchase. I'm just going to divide the total by the number of months remaining with the 0% offer and set the direct debit at that. After it's paid off, I'll set the direct debit to the full balance.