Set aside money for a pay at pump payment

I often use pay at pump which ofcourse authorises a certain amount and the updates some time later depending on the store, but here’s the thing, we already know how much we spent there, it would be a SUPER handy option to be able to just tell you, and reserve that amount for the transaction, considering you can and do show when payments are likely to update later, this doesn’t seem like a complicated thing to implement and I at least (and I’m assuming many pay at pump users) would really appreciate it

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This suggestion has been made before, however, this one below has only attracted 8 votes in two years, not that Monzo take notice of votes any more.

And this one, just the one vote

Personally, I don’t use Pay @ Pump, and, if I was to, would use a credit card.

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It’s slowly moving to a model of debit £100, refund difference of fuel dispensed, generally within the same few minutes.

It’s mostly Tesco I believe that does the £1 for a day then takes the full amount presented.

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This is a good idea: with some pay at pump merchants such as ASDA I have noticed that strangely, it varies depending on the bank and account (or I’m just making this up based on my own experiences). My partner when using our local ASDA petrol station has a temporary £99 hold placed on the account usually for 24/48 hours before the actual amount is taken from the account. In my case there’s no hold when using credit or debit card.

Is this the same station, and in the case of credit or debit for you, the same debit?

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Yes ASDA, my partners debit card has an authorisation hold mines doesn’t. Different cards, I have had authorisation holds using a credit card but it’s usually a pound.

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You’d think it would be station level, or should be.

Maybe a visa/MasterCard discrepancy, though banks do display authorisations and presentments differently. :sweat_smile:

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I have a credit card that I use purely for pay at pump, we go Costco and they authorise £120 for about 24 hours, we only fill up £50 at a time.

I refuse to use pay-at-pump due to the mess it causes. I’ll go in to see a person (and buy snacks too)

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The real reasoning behind it. :heart:

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You’ve just made me realise I haven’t been inside a petrol station since just before Covid kicked off.

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They’re really only supposed to auth hold for a few minutes on fuel purchases according to the rules, to avoid people ending up in financial difficulty due to the £100 auth,

Banks may respond to that differently - Monzo is the only bank I’ve used that gives real time updates & clears them within a few seconds (although I’ve not used pay at pump… so don’t know if they’re clearing within the rules and the banks are slow or they’re just ignoring the rules as usual).

I use Shell stations where possible as I can pay from an app on my phone. Thankfully they take the amount I choose to pre-auth (I choose £100 as my fuel tank is huge) then as soon as I complete the sale they refund the difference between £100 and my actual usage.

All very handy!

I also use Shell with either Barclaycard or Amex and the £100 pre-auth stays pending for a few days until the transaction clears. I filled up the other day with Barclaycard and it’s still showing as £100 pending after 3 days.

Weird! Mine always clear straight away on my Monzo:

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I’m actually missing £127 (€150) from my account right now because I authorised a transaction but then selected RON 91 on the screen instead of 95. I didn’t dispense any fuel and had to wait for the transaction to timeout before I could authorise again, select 95 and fill up.

The fuel station was completely unstaffed so there was no alternative to pay in store.

Today’s day 5 since the transaction and it’s not been returned. It’s no biggie for me, but I imagine for someone struggling on cash this would be quite a big issue especially in the middle of The Great Many Crises™.

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If taking the £100 initially, absolutely. The £1 first and present the full amount a within a few days comes under another set of rules I assume, as it doesn’t know how much to charge in that respect.

Pending auths can take 7/30 days generally. Not 100% who decides how long, maybe MCC depending, but should be back at one of those points in time.

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That’s why use my Mbna credit card for card payments at pump saves the hassle of my debit card being charged too much.

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We have a local pay at pump now, but you select the value of fuel you want and pay with card first. Pump then automatically stops at the amount you had paid for. One downside is if you wanted to fill the tank, it’s a guess as to how much your tank will hold.

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Now I’m curious - what happens if you guess too high - choose £50, but the tank is full at £40?

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