subject: How Do Credit Cards Give You More Access to Money? [print this page] How Do Credit Cards Give You More Access to Money?
The most common use of credit cards is for making purchases. This means that you are able to conveniently use your card like cash almost everywhere. However, there are times when you can not swipe your credit card and good old cash, or at least a cheque, is required as payment. Though you may not realise it, credit cards can still be helpful in these cases.
There are some standard credit card features that allow you to have access to more money when you need it in cash or cheque form. These two features are often called money transfer and credit card cheques.
Money transfer is a standard feature of the best credit cards. With money transfer, you are allowed to transfer a portion of you credit limit to your current account. This is very useful is you need to get cash from your current account or have insufficient funds on your current account to cover a cheque that your issued. This means that by doing money transfer, you not only get the benefit of access to more money, but are also able to save money since you can avoid overdrafts on your current account. Note though that money transfers usually have handling fees. Balances incurred through money transfer that are unpaid by the due date also incur interest. This means that you should only do money transfer if you really need to because you want to avoid the cost of borrowing as much as possible.
Credit card cheques, on the other hand, works just like paying off anything using an ordinary cheque. The only difference is that the funds do not come from your ordinary bank account but from your credit card account. Each time you issue a credit card cheque, the payment is reflected on your credit card, adding to your balance. The good thing about credit card cheques is that since it is just like an ordinary cheque, it can be used to pay for almost anything, including bills that do not accept credit cards. It is also good for frequent travellers since an Irish credit card cheque will be accepted anywhere in the world, which is very important if you are travelling to a country where stores accepting credit cards are more limited in number. The caveat though is that this feature, unlike money transfer, is not always a standard feature of credit cards. Aside from that, the feature also entails a fee, which differs per company and for each credit card.
