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Thanks Techno, but the whole idea of the Caxton is no charges from card provider
Thanks Techno, but the whole idea of the Caxton is no charges from card provider. . Keith
No charges on Halifax Clarity card either
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- Your prepaid card will not work at automated petrol stations
For security reasons your Caxton FX card will not work at automated petrol stations. We recommend that you avoid using them or you use an alternative card to settle the bill.
- Avoid using your prepaid card at Toll booths
Caxton FX prepaid cards require a merchant to seek authorisation before they provide the goods or services. The majority of European toll roads and bridges do not seek an authorisation and therefore you can't use your Caxton FX prepaid card at most toll booths.
1:2920 this morningCaxton showing NOW 1.273 less then yesterday that was 1.2800
Sure, but for fuel at un-manned stops, this Halifax card sounds good.Halifax card is fine but the idea of Caxton is to stock up when the rate is good and spend them when it's down and it will go down.
But ONLY for purchases - cash advances incur interest on the amount withdrawn starting the same day you take it out, it is only for purchases where you get an 'interest free' period ...Halifax Clarity giving 1.319188 today,
and you don't have to give them your money in advance,
you have up to 6 weeks to pay back without accruing any interest.
Pay monthly in full by Direct Debit.
Sorted.......
But ONLY for purchases - cash advances incur interest on the amount withdrawn starting the same day you take it out, it is only for purchases where you get an 'interest free' period ...
In order to get interest free cash withdrawals you would need to put money into your Halifax Clarity card account so that it is in credit not just at zero balance - ie by overpaying a bill or transferring money into the account before you go away so that there is already a good amount of credit in it before you start withdrawing cash from ATMs with it and you also need to make sure you don't go below zero when doing a cash withdrawal - this is how I've been led to believe it can work by another funster although I've not done it myself yet.
In simple terms what they suggest is that you can, for example, stick £500 into your Halifax Clarity card account so you have a positive balance of £500 (ie in credit) then use your card to make cash withdrawals at ATMs up to a maximum of £500 in total ... bingo, no interest on cash withdrawals and you get the 'interbank' exchange rate which is always better than a pre-payment cash card. If you need more cash then I suppose you can re-credit your HC card account to offset your next lot of cash ATM withdrawals. You'd need to know when your actual payment is due each month as I would think that if your card has some 'credit' left on it, this will be used to pay off any 'purchase' balance before the remainder is taken from your nominated payment source and you'd then be back at zero so would need to top it up again for the ATM 'cash' withdrawals.
Personally, for the amount of dosh we usually need I think a pre-payment card is the simplest way to go and can be easily topped up with a text message and/or via the internet.
So would putting money into your Halifax card in advance, not just be exactly the same as you are doing with a Caxton or Fairfax and just as easy?
Weeks or months in advance, they have your money in their accounts, not you.
With Halifax Clarity they never ever have my cash in advance, in fact they never have it until a few weeks after I have had the goods.
I very rarely ever draw cash when abroad. I keep a small float of hard cash, but will use my card at every opportunity, and I get the best rate on the day, always, and it works at Toll booths and unmanned fuel stations.
You are talking about using the Halifax Clarity card, or any other card, as a pure credit card for PURCHASES which is what they are supposed to be and you don't pay interest on purchases (some may charge a fee but most don't) when used that way so long as you pay off the whole balance each month (or longer if you have a 0% interest rate for for so many months ... but that's another discussion!). However if you draw cash out on a credit card you will pay interest from that day.
If you therefore need CASH then transferring funds to the credit card account is ONE WAY of being able to use it to draw cash out via an ATM without paying interest on it, especially if you don't have any other means to get cash, so in that sense it's similar to the pre-load type cash cards (Caxton, FairFx, Ukash etc). However if you draw out more cash than the amount you have transferred into your Halifax Clarity credit card (or that is left in it) it will still allow you to have the money but charge you interest on the portion which is below zero, ie a negative balance. This is where it differs from the pre-load type cards which once you get to the limit of how much you've loaded it with it will stop so you don't run the risk of having interest charges on cash withdrawals so if this happens all you do is simply top it up with via a text - you don't need internet access and a text is all that is needed to find out your balance.
You do have to be careful which pre-load card you use though as the FairFx one now charges 5op per top-up or balance request and also charges £1.50 to draw money out of ATMs so once we've used up the money on it we won't be loading it any more. The other one we have is Ukash which you can only top-up or check the balance of on line, but this is our back-up card so not a major issue.
I didn't say these cards/ways to use them, were ideal for everyone and for you it appears not to be something you're interested in, but others are.
Just out of interest though, if you need more ready cash when abroad - say you've run out - how do you go about getting more?
BEST FOREIGN EXCHANGE.com 1.3226
we always use this company...consistently best rates
that's a great rate but of course for exchange by the looks of it rather than pre-pay card