Child tax credit - random payment

[bonkers20]

Hello,
I normally get my CTC payment around the 1st of the month.

This week I completed my renewal and informed them of some changes. The changes are minor (increase in 1hr work/week for me, decrease in hrs for DH, salaries about the same - well below £40,000 threshold, slight increase in childcare costs).

Today I've had a payment. It's less than my regular payment, but not hugely so.

Do you think this is an extra payment due to under payment or do you think this is my new amount?

It's going to be tricky for me to phone them for over a week as I am away on business.

I hate to wait and see. I believe this happened before and it was an extra payment (hurrah!), but who knows with CTC....it's such a complex system.

Anyone else had random payments?

Thanks

yes we have had random payments and usually just after renewal, dont know why but always a bonus, letter takes ages to arrive to tell you what your payments are, unless you phone them you will have to wait and see how much you get, but i would say this is a random one off extra payment :o

Thanks. That's what I hoping. Considering people really rely on these payments I wish they'd be more transparent with them. Grrrrrrr. They must have got to this figure somehow, so why not pop a letter in the post?

even when you get your new reward letter it never explains why you have this extra payment either, but hey its a nice bonus