Simple question - can someone talk to me about mastercards?

Cellar_Door

I'm a total noob when it comes to banking and savings accounts. I have a bank account with a few grand in it, it's a cash card, I can just use it to withdraw money.

I'm interested in getting a card that allows me to buy stuff off the interwebs, book flights, and so on.

So, can I simply apply for a mastercard, transfer my balance over, and use the mastercard?

What exactly is the difference?

To me they're just lumps of plastics that I stick in a wall, and woo, magically money comes out - yes, I'm clueless.

Thanks

Random

A Mastercard is a credit card. You have a certain limit to the amount of money you can spend on it and you get a bill each month to pay it off. If you can't pay the full amount off each month then you start to build up interest. If you pay it off in full each month the only charge you should encounter is the government stamp duty (30EUR / year I think).

You can transfer money from your current account to your card usually through online banking to pay it off after you make your purchases.

You can also transfer money from your current account to your card to put it in credit.
e.g. you have a 1000EUR limit. If the card is clear (i.e. no money owing) and you transfer 500EUR to it you now have a 1500EUR limit until that extra 500EUR is gone. It's handy to do this for one off purchases but check with your provider specifically to see if you're covered for fraud etc when your account is in credit.

I've used both www.mbna.ie and www.aib.ie for credit cards and happy with both.

Hope this helps.

KillerShamrock

If you dont want to get a credit card and go through all the credit checks you could get a pre paid one where you control what you put on it and what you spend no credit limit and no checks involved

https://www.3v.ie/ or
or https://www.wirecard.com/wirecard/
or http://www.payzonemoney.com/


I have all three lol
Find the 3v the most useless and expensive of the lot though

Red Sleeping Beauty

The only thing negative about 3V is that it's quite restrictive what with the 350 limit (which was probably signed into the contract with Permanent TSB/Visa) and the charges to trasnfer monies. But you can get a €20 voucher/visa number at no transaction cost *


*mind you if you then try to use that €20 on a site like play.com or paypal there's a temp. verification transaction of about a euro put through put refunded straight away however you don't get the balance back for a few weeks which is utter cack.

Personally I don't like the look of the mastercard one as it's got a tricky lits of fees - their website says it's free to use online and in shops despite you having to pay a % of what you buy.

Red Sleeping Beauty

Click ^