Protection when using a credit card? Is it worth using a credit card to pay for a summer holiday if you intend to pay off the balance straight away?

[Britpopbaby]

Is there protection if you pay for a holiday on a credit card even though you intend to pay it off in full? I am thinking protection such as if the firm goes bust or something like that.

Yes. You can still go through your credit card company if needed, even if you have paid off the balance. I prefer to use my credit card for any big/slightly risky purchase like a holiday, just in case.

It absolutely is. I always put all big purchases on the credit card and pay it in full every month

Yes also because it is good.for your credit score
If you choose wisely you can get one which also gives you cash Back..I use a bank.of Scotland one for all spending to earn cash back and pay it off in full

Definitely. Worthwhile for any big purchase for the extra protection.

Yes. I use mine like that all the time and pay it back a few days later

Yes. We always pay off the credit card and use it to pay for most things, particularly if it is over £100. We have used Section 75 a couple of times, sometimes almost a year after we had booked something, and we had had no luck getting our money returned from the original seller. Our cases were all international sporting event tickets which were cancelled or international train bookings which were cancelled due to heavy flooding, where we had filled out the refund forms but had not heard back in the given time periods.

I don't really understand why someone would proactively choose not to book using credit cards (particularly if they pay them off each month!) in these sort of situations.

Paying it off straight away is irrelevant. It's the act of paying for the product or service that makes the credit card company equally liable.

We were due to travel with Monarch 2 days after they went bust and booked the flights by credit card which, like many others, we use for all spending for cashback.

I had an inkling they were going to go bust so within under an hour of the announcement, I booked replacement flights with another airline, which were expensive as it was short notice. But nowhere near as expensive as they were a few hours later when hundreds of people were trying to do the same thing to save their holiday - I think I paid about £500 for two return flights to Mallorca out of the main season (another reason to have a credit card, it allows you to just do this without worrying about finding the money in the short term) but later that day, they would have cost over £2k.

The credit card refunded the cost of the lost Monarch flights and the extra cost of the replacements, because the protection includes consequential loss - the difference between the original very cheap Monarch flights and the new, more expensive ones.

Why don't you just set up a DD to pay the whole bill in full each month? Makes your finances much simpler as you don't have all your normal spending dripping out of your bank account. You just get a single bill and a few weeks notice of when the money will leave your account.

It's worth using a credit card in general if you pay it off.

As an example, I have just had a CC bill, due to be paid on 14 Feb. That means my next bill will be due on 14 March – so for anything I buy now, I won’t have to pay for it until then. So six weeks’ free credit.

Actually I usually pay it as soon as I get the bill, just so I know I have. You can also obvs set up a DD to pay it.

Cashback is great – last year I earned more than £50 cashback on my CC. Yes it's not a fortune, but it’s extra money for me. I put everything on my CC - food, petrol, car bills, presents.

Exactly. So many times on here you see people saying 'I don't have a credit card because I don't need one' while at the same time posting about an issue that would be much easier to solve or wouldn't even have arisen if they had a credit card.

I'm also about to use section 75 about a faulty appliance that has failed after 25 months and both the retailer and manufacturer are refusing to help us with.

Thank you so much for all your responses. I will book using my credit card for definite!

Absolutely yes, I do. I've got balance for my July holiday sitting in my savings account earning albeit little interest but still a few quid a month. I'll pay my holiday balance with my credit card in May then pay that off with whats in the savings. I have better protection that way.

Yes, I have had to use the claim back service when the holiday company went insolvent. Wouldn't have got the money back from them as they didn't have any.

Because it doesn’t simplify it for me at all. I don’t pay anything by dd unless I absolutely have to. It keeps my finger firmly on the pulse of my spending and consumption. As a result I am debt free and can adjust my spending in a very focused way.

I always use mine for any kind of purchase like this simply because of the protection.

Yes. Always. It makes no difference you pay it off

Always - anything over £100 is always worth using a CC and paying off in full - Section 75 is very valuable

I use my credit card for every purchase I make....from a coffee to groceries to holidays.
Never use a debit card.

@Britpopbaby you dont even need to pay the full amount for the holiday on the credit card to get cover for the whole amount. You could just pay the deposit using it and the rest using another method e.g. debit card, direct debit, standing order, etc

We have a card we pay off every month and we use it for holidays and large purchases. We also get cashbck

Absolutely. During Covid I rang my card company to inform them of a change of address & they said to me that they could see I had recently bought tickets & to please let them know if we had any issues with refunds etc and they would sort it.

I pay off in full every month.

Thank you! That’s great to know and this as well as everything else I will be passing onto friends.