Credit card with instant spending notifications

Financial Chat
1

My tandem card is due to close early next month and I am on the lookout for a credit card that gives instant notifications along with 0% fees for using abroad on purchases. Any ideas?

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2

Amex for notifications. I think Capital One might, so the post office travel card might do it?

Anything you can set up with Google Pay, you can get some sort of notification

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3

Aqua cards are designed for poor credit, so can have low limits at least initially, but they are free to use abroad and you can get text notifications after every transaction.

They also now support Google Pay and Apple Pay.

4

Not yet but coming soon; Nationwide. At least according to the iOS app release notes.

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Edit: Not quite notifications, but if used with Apple/Google Pay?

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5

Amex has the instant notifications but not fee free overseas spending

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6

Pretty sure that they don’t provide 0% foreign spend fees

7

You posted quicker than me :rofl:

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8

God damn, I didn’t even read it properly haha

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9

Thanks for the reply back. Definitely seem to be a lack of cards that support it. The 3 main ones that I can see that do 0% foreign fees is Barclaycard, Santander and Halifax clarity.

Would prefer to stay away from Amex ideally.

11

Jaja is the only credit card I have that has instant notifications and balance updating and also fee free overseas spending.

Unfortunately, not fully launched yet.

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12

Tymit, though the limit may be a bit low for your needs

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13

You could pair a Curve card with any credit card and essentially get the same features.

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14

I think a problem with Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Curve is that whilst they facilitate instant transaction notifications, they don’t facilitate instant account balance updates.

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15

NewDay cards (including Aqua) do instantly update with pending transactions, but don’t have proper notifications - only SMS.

You could get around this by using mobile payments most/all of the time and only having the SMS notifications on as a backup.

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16

Why?

17

The problems with acceptance is usually the issue. I tried going Amex and most shops I use, that are not national chains, did not accept it (I do live in a backwater northern pennine town).

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18

Amex is not widely accepted by local businesses as they charge the merchant too much in fees

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19

Thanks. Sounds like the best solution for me will be using a curve card.

Just can’t believe that instant spend notifications are not more widely available.

P.s out of curiosity how widely available is Amex abroad in terms of mainland Europe? I would of thought less widely available than in the UK but that’s more a guess.

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20

Zopa credit card is another option. Low credit limit at least initially but the apr can be as low as 9.9%.

It has only just been released last month so it’s early days for them but they have all you’ve asked for and customer support seems good through instant chat.

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21

Just be aware that you lose Section 75 protection on purchases via Curve, as the way it technically works is charging your credit card to create “electronic money” which is equivalent to the price of the purchase, and then funding the purchase via the “electronic money”.

This means that it is not a three-party relationship (you, the credit card company, and supplier of the goods) but a four-party relationship (all of those plus Curve as an intermediary). The way the legislation is drafted, this means that you are not covered.

It’s just something to be aware of if you are planning to make a large purchase, as you may wish to use your credit card directly in this situation (Curve would be fine for everything else).

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