Caught out by cash-like transaction fees

safe_hands2

As in the title, just been charged a fee and interest for buying a gift top up for my friend's son's Go Henry card with my Halifax credit card. I'm sure I've used my AMEX in the past for this with no charges. My bad, I should have checked the terms and conditions. 

Going forward though, I want to check if I would get charged for topping up an instant reloadable voucher on my work's rewards platform. I think I probably would, but can't get a straight answer from Halifax. I currently use my Barclaycard for this with no charges, but Barclaycard don't seem to have an equivalent of this bit of the Halifax terms and conditions for when charges apply:

"Purchasing or topping up electronic money, payment cards, mobile wallets or account dashboard services."

Does anyone have any similar experience and can help?

GeoffTF

The T&Cs for my Barclaycard Rewards card refers to "Cash like transactions including:". That probably includes vouchers. Put it down to experience. If in doubt, pay by debit card.

Grumpy_chap

safe_hands2 said:

As in the title, just been charged a fee and interest for buying a gift top up for my friend's son's Go Henry card with my Halifax credit card. I'm sure I've used my AMEX in the past for this with no charges. My bad, I should have checked the terms and conditions. 

Going forward though, I want to check if I would get charged for topping up an instant reloadable voucher on my work's rewards platform. I think I probably would, but can't get a straight answer from Halifax. I currently use my Barclaycard for this with no charges, but Barclaycard don't seem to have an equivalent of this bit of the Halifax terms and conditions for when charges apply:

"Purchasing or topping up electronic money, payment cards, mobile wallets or account dashboard services."

Does anyone have any similar experience and can help?

Not direct help, but for reference, I have used my Barclaycard and Aqua credit cards to purchase gift cards from an employment linked rewards platform.

I suspect this may have as much to do with how the rewards platform code the transactions as anything else.

It is quite possible that everything that is processed as a transaction to a Go Henry card is treated as "cash-like" whereas buying, say, a Tesco Gift Card at Tesco may show as "food and groceries" or whatever standard code is assigned to Tesco stores.  That it is a "cash-like" product or could subsequently be used to pay for "entertainment" (TVs) or "computing" or "Telephone" is irrelevant.  The assignment of transaction type identifying codes is probably quite crude.

crumpet_man

My experience of buying vouchers via Reward Gateway is no fee for
Barclaycard, Aqua and Pulse but did get a fee for Lloyds.

safe_hands2

I need to be more on the ball! From checking, it was Barclaycard I used last time for go Henry without any charges. Realised I switched my rewards gateway to Halifax this month and haven't been charged for that. The cash fee appeared the day of the go Henry payment and is exactly 5% of it, so it must just be that payment that was the problem. Not having had problems before, it took me unawares, but it seems that Halifax have stricter criteria for what constitutes a cash like transaction.

alittlecynical

I got this when my son’s school dinners were recharged so I now use my debit card for that.

born_again

Best way to look at this is.
Topping up a card & vouchers are like giving cash.
So if in doubt, use debit card.

MrFrugalFever

I've found Barclaycard to have the least amount of transactions classed as 'Cash like transactions', but this seems to vary depending on lender. 

zagfles

MrFrugalFever said:

I've found Barclaycard to have the least amount of transactions classed as 'Cash like transactions', but this seems to vary depending on lender. 

The new BC reward card doesn't treat cash any differently to purchases so it doesn't really matter, except you don't get the 0.25% reward for cash. I use it for ATM withdrawals.

born_again

zagfles said:

MrFrugalFever said:

I've found Barclaycard to have the least amount of transactions classed as 'Cash like transactions', but this seems to vary depending on lender. 

The new BC reward card doesn't treat cash any differently to purchases so it doesn't really matter, except you don't get the 0.25% reward for cash. I use it for ATM withdrawals.

Using a CC for ATM is never a good idea, as it gets reported & does not look good to lenders.

zagfles

born_again said:

zagfles said:

MrFrugalFever said:

I've found Barclaycard to have the least amount of transactions classed as 'Cash like transactions', but this seems to vary depending on lender. 

The new BC reward card doesn't treat cash any differently to purchases so it doesn't really matter, except you don't get the 0.25% reward for cash. I use it for ATM withdrawals.

Using a CC for ATM is never a good idea, as it gets reported & does not look good to lenders.

Been doing it for years, mainly abroad for cash, with BC and Halifax, never seemed to affect my credit rating or ability to get new cards or higher limits. More affected by maxing out cards with BT offers!

Maybe not something to do if you're about to apply for a mortgage though and your credit rating is important to you.