Capital One Credit Card Cheques free of charges?

CLONNEN

I have been sorting through all my paperwork with regard to credit cards etc. and I have just noticed that the Credit Card Cheques which Capital One send me are supposedly treated as Purchases and not as Cash Advances.

Would I be correct in assuming that if I made one of these credit card cheques payable to myself and deposited it in my bank account I wouldn't be charged any fees for it?

The cheques have a P after the sort code which I am told signifies it as a Purchase.

If I set up a direct debit for the card to be paid off in full when the next payment is due would I really not incur any charges?

If it is true then does this mean I can effectively get free interest on the money while it in my bank account?

Rafter

You would have to check the Terms and Conditions in detail.

Even if you only get the purchases interest rate, cheques often have a handling charge and also incur interest from the date of purchase rather than including the ~40 days interest free you get if you make a purchase using the card and settle in full.

The 40 days interest free is funded by the 'interchange' paid by the retailer. Since this doesn't get paid with cheques, it would be odd for Capital 1 not to levy a charge or charge interest from day 1.

R.

Gotabiscuit

CLONNEN wrote:

If it is true then does this mean I can effectively get free interest on the money while it in my bank account?

Yes, I do this all the time with Capital One purchase rate cheques.

Though, like Rafter says, check your own t&cs carefully.

CLONNEN

The covering letter which accompanied the latest book of Credit Card Cheques is dated July 2005 and says :

"The interest rate you'll be charged will be exactly the sane as the amount you pay for purchases. There is no fee for using your cheques."

"The interest rate for cheques will be the same as your interest rate for purchases. You will have up to 54 days interest free credit on your cheques if you pay off your balance in full every month."

"There is no expiry date on the cheques you can use them whenever you want."

"There are no additional fees for using these credit card cheques. However if your cheque is returned because you don't have enough available credit limit on your Capital One account, you will incur a charge."

Sounds promising - but I think I'll send a message via their website's Secure Mesage service to make sure before I try using one.

surfcat

Whether this is worthwhile will depend on you credit limit. If you were to only 'borrow' say 1000 a month via cheque into your bank account, then over a year you'd only get £40 or less, assuming you have a good interest paying current account. You'd have to pay back each month so that would knock a certain proportion off. Higher credit limit might make the effort more rewarded.

michaels

Couldn't you use these for SBT muling?