4 ways to save money on a plastic card
As always, the most important thing is to read the fine print in the “plastic” service agreement.
March 8 2019
Cashless payments in stores are convenient: you don’t have to carry money in your wallet, you don’t have to count your change. But there are bank card functions that you have to pay for. The client often finds out about this with a delay.
This is an opportunity to spend more funds than lies on the card. If you don’t keep track of your expenses, you can easily go into debt. As soon as the cardholder’s own money on the account runs out, he is granted a loan. The rates on it are higher than those that apply to ordinary consumer loans. Banks often provide overdrafts automatically, immediately after the plastic is activated. But you can refuse services.
What to do: When making out a card, check with the manager in the department if there is a possibility of a credit limit on it. Find out how to get rid of it right away. In order to save money, do not disable the SMS-informing option (they charge money for it). The service allows you to control the balance of your own funds.
Old card service. The bank will continue to charge the fee for this option, even if you no longer use plastic, but the account has not been closed. Or the validity period has expired, you do not want to be serviced in this credit institution, and the message about the card re-issue (it is usually sent to the client) was ignored.
What to do: write a statement to close the account. If the term for reissuing the card has come, but it is not needed, at least a month in advance, notify the credit institution about this. Sometimes it happens that you wrote an application for refusal of service, nevertheless, you opened a new card, the money for the annual service was debited. In this case, write a claim to the bank. Funds will be returned.
Credit organizations also offer premium cards to customers. They offer advanced opportunities, for example, free foreign health insurance (often even for family members), increased credit limit, universal bonuses. However, maintaining a premium card is quite expensive. The bank may not take a commission at all only if strict conditions are met: the minimum balance on the account must be considerable, for example, 300 thousand rubles. Or the total cost of purchases made with the card per month cannot be less than 30 thousand rubles. (amount varies).
What to do: carefully read the service agreement, refuse unrealizable conditions and unnecessary options.
Overpayment for using cards abroad
The cost of the same overseas purchase using VISA and MasterCard is different. The fact is that three currencies are involved in the calculations: the currency of your account, the currency of the check and the currency of billing (settlement of a bank with an international payment system). If the currencies of the check and billing do not match, the payment system converts the purchase amount at its own rate. Of course, they take a commission for this.
What to do: it is useful to know that the VISA payment system is pegged to the dollar. Therefore, it is cheaper to pay for purchases with such a card in countries where this currency is used. MasterCard is calculated in euros. This means that it is beneficial to take such a card with you to Europe.