Paying for holiday on credit card

brook123lyn

could I have some help please?

I have to pay £1600 balance on a family holiday in 4 weeks. I haven't got the cash yet but will have most of it by august- i have applied for a 0% purchase credit card to help.I see from the holiday company details for payment this morning I will be charged £32 for using a credit card but none for debit or cheque. Is there a moneysavingexpert way to avoid this charge or am I better not bothering and getting the extra insurance cover that a credit card affords?
any help gratefully received as on my salary with 3 kids, £32 is still a missable amount . I really am trying to be more than a moneysavingnovice!
thank you in advance.

jimbo26

Not much you can do. If you have a Virgin CC you could do a SBT (super balance transfer) to your current account and then pay for the holiday on your debit card.

seasidepom

I can't see a way round this. A lot of companies (not just holiday) charge a percentage for taking credit card payment and 2% is not over the top. This is to cover them for the commission they have to pay the credit card company. Might be worth checking what the credit card would charge for a transfer of funds to your current account if this is something they are willing to do and whether the 0% deal would apply to such a transfer. If it's less then you can make a saving that way.

As far as insurance cover is concerned, does this apply to holidays? I would check this before you assume you've got extra cover.

Volcane

jimbo26 wrote: »

Not much you can do. If you have a Virgin CC you could do a SBT (super balance transfer) to your current account and then pay for the holiday on your debit card.

I recommend you do this.... in fact I did exactly the same about 4 weeks ago.

The other option would be to pay your holiday on a cashback credit card to lessent the impact as you'll get some moolah back!

NickX

jimbo26 wrote: »

Not much you can do. If you have a Virgin CC you could do a SBT (super balance transfer) to your current account and then pay for the holiday on your debit card.

True, but bear in mind that if you don't actually pay for the holiday on the Credit Card, then you won't have the benefit of Section 75 protection should there be a problem with the holiday or even worse the company goes bust.

In actual fact you could get away with paying just £100 directly on the Credit Card, and pay the rest using cash from the SBT, and the whole purchase would be covered by Section 75.

However, it is highly possible that the SBT will incur a fee which is likely to be more than 2%, so I think I would just pay the lot on Credit Card, accept the £32 and rest assured that the purchase was covered by Section 75.