How many credit cards do you have?

I found this annoying. Unless it has been changed since,
{Snip} their protection insurance fee was based on the closing balance at the end of the month. This differs from the closing balance at the end of the statement period.
{/Snip}
It appears their PDS now mentions:
We calculate your premium monthly, based on the closing balance of your account. If your balance is zero on the day we print your statement, we don’t charge a premium that month.
But my issues are still in the following replies.

eg: If my closing balance is $1000 which ends on the 5th of each month, my direct debit will take $1000 at the end of the month. I use the credit card between the 5th to the end of the month. So if my closing balance at the end of the month is $2500, the insurance fee will be a % of the closing balance at end of the month. If it's post direct debit, that's still % of $1000 which I found to be frustrating. I guess that's how they get their fee. The only way to fix this is to either pay your entire balance in full by the end of the month, which defeats the purpose of 55 day interest free. If you pay manually rather than direct debit you get slapped $0.95 for doing so.
Of course, this may have changed but I haven't needed to claim much over the last 2 years (I love looking for deals and I only buy what I need). I've found the money saved in my offset works out to be better than paying off my entire balance in full by end of month.

 

Further to 28 Degrees Shopper Protection:
Shopper’s Protection costs 0.5% of the monthly closing balance of your account, up to a maximum monthly premium of $50. It is debited to your account and payable monthly.

So before the statement gets printed I will have to have my balance $0 before the 5th:
If my Direct Debit can pay the entire balance, I'm not maximising the 55 day interest period. It essentially becomes 30 day interest free.
If I make a purchase between end of month and the 5th, you'll get stung a fee for that too.

Each to their own. If you're diligent in keeping watch and finding a deal for the product from that same retailer, then you'll be able to claim. ($600/item up to $2000/year) Otherwise I prefer my 55 day interest free, saving the thousands in my offset rather than paying the entire balance (vs closing balance) each month. You can save heaps with price protection but there are limitations and for me, it no longer made it worthwhile.

Source

 

The big spenders are not posting here. Where are the posters with 6 figure limits!

 

Me one.

Wife seven (one for each day of the week)

Only kidding

 

I have 2 cards linked to the same account - Mastercard & Amex. $15K limit, I would drop the limit but it's a hang over from when I worked for a bank & has a 9% interest rate and that's the lowest limit that type can have. I do put pretty much everything through the cards. The points game does work, a few years ago we flew business class return to the UK on points, my LO was under 2 so we shared on the way over & as the plane wasn't full they blocked him an extra seat all the way back. We nearly have enough points for 2 return business class seats so I'm hoping we'll be able to use those for our UK trip next year.

 

I have a single personnel card with a $6k limit.

I route all bills / expenses through the card where possible to maximise points. I pay down the balance in full each month.

Card is a Bankwest card for qantas points.

 

Is 30k the most you can max out on credit cards??

 

I have 1 Amex and 1 Visa. I don't pay any annual fees on the cards. We use our cards to buy everything to earn points. As soon as an amount is spent, I transfer the funds to pay for it from our bank. We never have an outstanding balance.

I like the protection in place for fraud which has happened at least 6 times over the course of my financial life.
With a credit card, the risk is on the bank's money.
With a debit card, the risk is on my money.

Credit cards are useful when dealing with dodgy businesses. I bought an $800 item once and the company never delivered and became unresponsive. I contacted my credit card to issue a chargeback and had my money refunded. If I had paid direct deposit, or cash, that money would be gone or I would have had to put much more effort into getting it back. Now if a company doesn't do the right thing I do a chargeback so my credit card can do the follow up work. I've also used the threat of a chargeback to get a company to do the right thing many times.

On my visa I've purchased many kitchen appliances using rewards. I've probably got them at a premium price vs haggling in a shop with cash, but I don't really care because they were free anyway. On my amex I have enough points for about 5 business class trips to Paris.

Having said that, I don't make any recommendations for credit cards to anyone because in my experience people don't use them correctly. At least 3 out of 5 of my family/friends are struggling with their cards.

 

Never been caught. My card is set to autopay.

 

Setup as autopay but have been caught twice, got interest charges reversed both times.

I normally can access my bank account through my Visa by selecting savings and that is how I get cash-out. This function doesn't work when overseas and it is treated as a cash advance from the credit card.

 

$15K and I'm maxed out. I can use either Amex or the Masters but jointly they're capped at 15K. I use the Amex whenever I can as it earns triple points ie $1 = 3 points. I use the Mastercard if they don't accept Amex or there is fees to do so. Fees on Amex becoming increasingly rare.

 

None here.
Never had the need or want.
Have two debit cards with seperate institutions, one is Visa, other Mastercard.
I dont spend enough, and you never get past the recurring 30/55 days free, so no point.
The FF game is where EVERYONE pays a little for the few to collect

 

In the last few yeats ige paid on time. I think once or twice i was late a by a few daya. The banks do give yoh a few days leeway due to bpay not being instant.
I domt know how many days.
If youre a regular customer they do waive small feea.

Eg lasy month i had a over the counter withdrawal fee waived when i called them as i didnt know otc were charged

I also had a few purchases over the years charged as a cash advance interest refunded .

And yes you can max your caed out past 30k.
The most ive had at one time owing is 60k.

I love credit cards. Cant live withoit them

 

I got 3 or 4 cards.

And I got ripped off a few weeks ago.

I hardly ever use tap n go. A few weeks ago I used it on 2 occasions at 2 food places. That night I got sms from bank about possible unauthorised transactions and my card was then blocked.

Now I got to wait 6 weeks for bank to investigate and hopefully refund the $300 I got gypped.

 

Poor form, @datto from one or more of those food places. When you find out which one it was, you might want to go back there and have a chat with the powers that be, assuming it wasnt run by some motorcycle enthusiasts with anger management issues.

I have held an Amex for many years and have only have ever had very good things to say about doing business with them, and their excellent service.

One exception would be where they decided to charge for their Membership Miles loyalty scheme at about $59 (ish) per year, which was pretty average.

Can you imagine some marketing droid sitting in a (probably catered, in case some shareholders are reading...) meeting asserting that charging the most loyal customers for their loyalty program would be a good idea?

So, unfortunately, this meant large amounts (for those fans of Pretty Woman read "huge") were redirected to another card, as Membership Miles were discontinued.

Other than that, Amex has been excellent to deal with.

And hopefully said marketing droid is not now working for some council promoting the community's engagement in timely reporting of pot-holes.... or (hopefully) he/she is not currently managing a major department store or hospitality franchisor suffering from major share price issues at present...

 

2 cards - HSBC Platinum Visa. No annual fees if spending over $6K a year which I do easily. Worth it for the included insurances and rewards points. Also have an AMEX Explorer card which is a favourite among Ozbargainers (surely there's a few of us out there?). Received 110K bonus points on signing up. $400 annual fee but the perks make up for it. Pays for most of my family holiday every year.

Have direct debit setup for both so don't pay any interest. Never understood why anyone would pay interest on their card except under extraordinary circumstances.

Also had a 28 Degrees card for fee free overseas transactions but hadn't used it for months so had completely forgotten about. Embarrassingly, when I was applying for loan pre-approval, the bank reminded me about it when doing my credit check Ended up cancelling it the next day.

 

As soon as I get the statement, I just schedule the full amount to be paid on NetBank just a few days before it due and I forget about it