That's odd. I was in Europe recently and used a DC exclusively in shops and restaurants with no problem. Just put it in a card reader and away you go! The DC is a more definite way of paying as it comes straight from your bank account. I supose the only thing is that the seller can't extract more funds from your account unlike a CC.
Car hire is very different to an object or goods you have received. Not sure why you find it odd when you stated the obvious reason
Possibly because as retirees without the burden of mortgage/school fees/orthodontic bills etc, we pay our cards in full and on time.
This is really good advice. I have a couple of cards with limits in the $25-30k range and it’s pretty easy to come close to those limits with a pair of J airfares and other travel expenses.
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Why do you say that @AustraliaPoochie, about not waiting until the end of the month to pay off the card. Just curious.
The card issuers do make money on every transaction - via a merchant fee which is usually a flat fee per transaction plus a percentage of the value of the transaction. This is paid by the merchant and often passed on to you via a cc surcharge. So although they don’t make interest, which I agree is lucrative for the banks, they do still make something, pretty much for nothing.
I've never heard of such a thing. How would a bank know your post retirement income and why would they check? I've had credit cards since 1998 and retired 10.5 years and had about 5 cards approved since. I'm on a government pension and topped up by a part age pension so not a big income.
Car companies also put a hold on your CC which can be considerable, I’ve heard of more than $4000 on occasions. With a DC they take real cash as that deposit!
Well, if you bank with them they can easily see the money coming in (or not)!
A bank would know if they issued the credit card. With lots of business with the same bank it waives any banking fees but i still pay a cc fee.
I wonder why people worry about the CC limit. As a retiree I have two cards with very low limits at $6,000 each. If I need to spend say $20k on something like a trip, then I transfer that amount into my CC, so I can still use the card, but using my own money, it has never been a problem. The limits are not an issue.This is really good advice. I have a couple of cards with limits in the $25-30k range and it’s pretty easy to come close to those limits with a pair of J airfares and other travel expenses.
Then I got a no-limit Amex charge card. It’s the winner for my travel expenses. Only real downside, is the need to pay off in full each month. This doesn’t bother me as I always pay off my cards in full each month, but you can’t defer paying the bill on a charge card. In the past 3 months, I’ve charged over $50k to this card (upcoming cruise, related air travel, experiences and car in Iceland etc, fares and accommodation for Japanuary 2026 and hefty deposit on African safari for March 2026). As I said upthread, stupid banks to miss out on all of the fees they could make from this. Yep, I’m in peak travel while I can before the leukaemia returns
That’s certainly a work around for some. But some CCs charge a fee if you manually make a payment (eg 28° MC). Some others really don’t like you putting your card in credit deliberately.
Yep.
Yes @willclan, I know you can do that, but I prefer to use my cards as true credit cards, rather than effectively being a debit card as you describe "using my own money". So, I like to run up my expenses, leave them on the card for the interest free period and then pay off in full. That means that the quite large amounts of cash needed to cover my travel and other costs can sit in my account generating interest for sometimes up to a full 30 days. That's a very good reason to care about a credit limit in my book. Of course, back when there was effectively no interest for deposits, it was less of an issue.
Poochie is on to all of this.
