Purchase on a balance transfer card.

PIPL

A year ago I took out a TSB credit card with an offer of 27 month interest free on balance transfers. Made a purchase on my existing card and transferred it to the new one to take advantage of the 27 months interest free. So far so good.

In June last year I made a significant purchase on the new card, and made a payment against the card to clear that purchase amount a few days later.

T&Cs of the card says "when you make a payment we will allocate it first against the items on your statement that accrue the higher interest rates." So one would expect that since the purchase was made one day and a payment to clear it was made a few days later, the payment would clear the purchase and you'd be charged no interest.

Wrong. Apparently I made the payment too early!

Although the purchase showed online before I made the payment, it wasn't on the paper statement until the end of the month. So my payment got allocated to the 27 month interest free transferred opening transaction. Seems I should have waited 'til the purchase showed on the month end paper statement.

Took from July to December to get an explanation from the bank and they insist they are totally in order charging me over £50 interest in that time.

[Deleted User]

That's correct - you need to wait for the transaction to statement.  There are a couple of cards which will apply it to any transaction, but they're in the minority.

redux

If you're going to do occasional spending on the card, it will save interest to move payment to earlier than the due date on the statement. The best time is the day after the statement, or even the same evening after it's produced.

Chris1975_2

I’ve had this exact issue with Barclaycard recently. When I queried the interest charged they said they would waive it as a goodwill gesture; great, am appreciative of that. 

But I still then wanted to understand where I had gone wrong and where it was detailed that I should wait for a statement to be issued before making a payment to clear a purchase.  When i asked the question they pointed me to the transfer terms and conditions. I don’t agree that the t&cs make it clear at all, hence I came here to see if it was an issue others have experienced… I think they either need to be clearer or otherwise adjust the way in which payments are processed!

molerat

Chris1975_2 said:

I’ve had this exact issue with Barclaycard recently. When I queried the interest charged they said they would waive it as a goodwill gesture; great, am appreciative of that. 

But I still then wanted to understand where I had gone wrong and where it was detailed that I should wait for a statement to be issued before making a payment to clear a purchase.  When i asked the question they pointed me to the transfer terms and conditions. I don’t agree that the t&cs make it clear at all, hence I came here to see if it was an issue others have experienced… I think they either need to be clearer or otherwise adjust the way in which payments are processed!

How much clearer do you want them to make it ?

When you make a payment, we will always reduce the balances that appear on your statement before we use your payment to reduce the value of transactions that have not yet appeared on your statement.

Dandytf

I learned years ago, the difficult way.

Best to use separate cards when possible.