Alt

Does anyone know how good the Lloyds Amex exchange rate is for overseas purchase? Specially for USD?

I currently use Post Office MC which has an excellent rate of very close to the inter-Bank rate plus no other currency fees ^

I want to use the Amex at places where I cannot use the MC (Costco,.....)


Cheers

stifle

It's a 2.99% loading as I understand it.

Is there anywhere other than warehouse clubs that accept Amex and not Visa/MasterCard?

Alt

Not sure. Costco is the main one for me. I need to calculate to see if it is better to pay by cash (USD bought at standard exchange rate) or by card...

EDIT: I guess I also need to find out if the BA Amex card has a better rate

Cheers

britbronco22

If you want the method with lowest exchange rate, then you should get a Halifax Clarity Card, free cash withdrawals with no loading charge!

I think loading on BA Amex and Lloyds cards are both close to 3%. But on the Lloyds card at least you earn 2.5 Avios, better than the BA Amex cards, unless you need spend to reach a 2-4-1.

Cap'n Benj

If only setting up this card was as easy as cancelling it!

After all the trouble applying and then getting paid the correct bonuses, it was cancelled in a couple of minutes by an agent who could not have been nicer!

Sadly Lloyds customer service coming a little too late!

PanGalactic

This does really deserve it's own thread but I daren't start one a face the wrath of the mods!

Saw this yesterday when I logged into my online banking....



When I did a loan quote it was offering me 9.7%, Mrs P was offered 9.2%

I decided to do some digging and see if I could find more detailed T+C's somewhere on the Lloyds site but I could not, so I decided to call them instead...


1. First I spoke to telephone banking
2. Telephone banking put me through to internet banking
3. Internet Banking put me through to loans
4. Loans tried to put me through to credit cards put me through to payment verifications instead
5. Payment verifications tried to put me through to credit cards but put me through to a number which wasnt answered after 10 minutes on hold
6. I then called credit cards directly
7. Credit cards then put me through to avios.

Avios was aware of the offer - YAY! (7 departments has to be some kind of record right? Each department sounded really confident that the next one would be able to help me, what a farce!)

According to Avios and the information they had from Lloyds......

Regarding Qualifying - Anyone who is eligible for the offer will be notified , I'm assuming the advert within Internet banking counts as being notified.

Regarding the full Terms and conditions for this offer - apparently there aren't any more T+Cs apart from the standard Lloyds loan terms and conditions.

I then called back the loans department to find out the mechanics of the Lloyds bank loans as loans I have had in the past simply reduced the amount you had to pay each month keeping the term length the same, though that seems to have changed because apparently any overpayments now reduce the term of the loan, so there goes my bright idea of paying back £4900 and paying the rest off at £5 per month +interest for the next 2 months before cancelling. On the bright side interest is calculated daily so what I'm planning to do is pay off £4500 tomorrow, then let them take their £438 and some pennies at the end of the month, then getting a settlement figure and paying off the last bit of the loan once the 6 weeks have passed.

Mrs P and I both took £5001 each earlier today (as the offer clearly states "over £5000" as opposed to "£5000 or over" as you can see from the screenshot above, so better safe than sorry)

The money appeared in our current accounts instantly once the applications were completed, it didn't even ask us for any financial info, just had to click a couple of boxes to agree to stuff.

If my calculations are correct we should end up paying less than £6 each in interest and getting 9,000 Avios each ^^

britbronco22

Thanks for posting that Panny. I saw the offer, but aftering working out 13% / 52 * 6 x £5k, I decided I could be bothered to pay £75 for 9,000 Avios. However, I hadn't considered paying off most of the balance before the minimum period!

Just to make sure I'm clear, are you saying you can overpay the loan, but your balance at the end of the first month must be higher than the monthly payment. Why is your monthly payment so high?

deccoo

Hi all - long time lurker here with a quick question.

I recently signed my wife up to the Lloyds TSB Duo Premier but can't work out how to associate the card with her avios account. I don't remember been asked for it and can't see anywhere in either the Lloyds or Avios site to so it.

Anyone know what I am missing?

stifle

Presumably the monthly payment is £438 because the loan is scheduled to be repaid over a year.

Raffles

Welcome to FT.

As with Tesco transfers to Avios, it is automatic. They look for an Avios account (an avios.com account, not a BA account) with matching name and address. Only if yours do not match should you worry about calling.

Wait and see what happens after the first month. Your Avios should arrive BEFORE your statement, if you getnthe statement but no Avios then call Lloyds.

deccoo

Ah - that could be an issue then as I think the Avios account is still in her maiden name - phone call it is then!

PanGalactic

Yes, and that won't change, but the interest is worked out daily, so if you pay most of it off after a couple of days, the interest won't be anything like that.

Although make sure you leave enough of the loan owed so the first payment won't clear it.

Incidentally I just tried making an online payment into the loan using the sort code and account number given to me by the loans department.

When I tried adding a recipient, I got a red message on the screen saying "you cannot designate a Lloyds TSB personal loan as a recipient"

I called the loans department back and was told this was due to there being several different loans available and they had problems with people paying into the wrong one.

They were however able to accept a debit card payment over the phone so Mrs P and I have both paid £4500 off today bringing our interest down from £1.32 per day to £0.0132

In a month they will take their £438, then the next month whatever is left to clear the loan and close the account.

britbronco22

Panny, thanks again for explaining how to make use of this! Could you explain why you can't ask for a loan repaid over a longer period, so that you could then pay off more in advance, leaving a lower repayment at the end of month 1?
(I realise the interest is already pretty low in your scenario too, just want to fully understand).
Also did you confirm there is no penalty for early repayment?

PanGalactic

There is no penalty for earlier repayment, yes, you could I suppose ask for a loan over a longer period!

I'm sure someone can work out a more optimal way to work this, for example a longer payment period to reduce the monthly payment, however for the sake of a few quid I couldn't really be bothered.

teflon

This has to be the most ridiculously madcap miles-earning scheme I've read on here. I wouldn't expect any less of you Panny - well done, you've excelled yourself