Best Credit Card for me??

H

Honky

Guest
Hi,

I have somehow avoided needing a CC so far however with a number of items required from E-bay and other such on-line shops I will now need one.

I don't intend to spend a whole lot on it (approx 6k pa) and would envisage setting up a direct debit to avoid running into the interest period.
It appears that some try to tempt you with 0% bal transfers (not relevant to me), others have introductory low rates and others have loyalty schemes.

My question is: Which company's offer is best suited to me?

All advice greatly appreciated.
 
If you are clearing the balance each month before interest charges kick in and there are no annual charges on the card itself (you'll have to pay the annual stamp duty charge of €40 obviously) then it doesn't really matter which card you choose as far as I can see.
 
If you have no balance transfer to avail of introductory offers and you will clear the balance every month, I would still go for a lower rate card, just in case things don't work out as planned.

If you want 'value' from your credit card, go for something like that offered by www.tesco.ie (Clubcard points), RyanAir (free flights, but restrictive and high enough interest rates), www.pigsback.com (offered through [broken link removed] if still available and gives you 'Piggy Points' to use towards certain goods and services), American Express Blue (offered through Bank of Ireland) that gives you 1% 'MoneyBack' against your purchases (the downside is that Amex cards are not as widely accepted as Visa and MC). The Ulster Bank Zinc card gives you €40 cashback when you spend €5000 (in a year), and this would cover the stamp duty of €40 payable each year,

You should also comapare cards in trems of additional charges, e.g. cash advance fees (when you use your card to withdraw money from an ATM), foreign exchange margins (you will be charged a margin when you buy in a foreign currency but are billed in euro), late payment fees (maybe not relevant in your case, but you never know.........) etc.

It's also useful if you can check your balance and view a 'live' statement online (if you have your current account and credit card with the same bank).
 
If you're absolutely sure you can pay off the full balance every month, I can't see a better deal than the [broken link removed]card mentioned by CCOVICH. I have one, and I use it where/whenever I can — which is not everywhere, admittedly — so keep/carry a back-up. I spent €20K on it last year, and duly got a 01% 'cashback' of €200 last November — more than enough to cover the annual €40 duty...
 
terrontress said:
Is there anything which I could buy, using a reward credit card, that I could quickly realise its cash value once again, i.e. if I were to buy prize bonds for several thousand, cash them in, use the cash to pay for the credit card bill and then repeat the process.

Anyone any ideas?
Click to expand...

If you want to use the search facility, you will find a previous discussion on this.

If you wish, please re-post this query in the Borrowing, Banking and Credit Cards forum, a more suitable place for discussion of such a strategy.

Thanks.
 
What you could consider is a 3V card if you don't want to build up a debt.

Otherwise the cheapest standard card at the moment seems to be NIB's Mastercard at 9.9% which is part of the Easy account package (which is basically a basic current account).
 
bank of scotland ireland offer a 9.5% card. this applies after six months.
 
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