Credit card

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yes my mistake iff you pay in full no interest unless you take a cash advance then you pay full interest rate on the withdrawal only often plus a bit more till full Ballance paid in full ----so never withdraw cash
so iff you are abroad and take money out you are paying interest untill paid in full
 
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My now barclaycard was originally the british gas goldfish card and they paid employees to take one out
 
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I have never had a credit card, but recently have made a few big purchases and it's just awkward asking others to do it on their card and paying them back.
 
My CC was through the caravan club, used to get up to 15 nights a year free as long as I spent enough, that finished a few years ago, now its Amazon vouchers about £15 a month
 
I have a Halifax CC which we use when abroad as always receive the interbank rate when paying in local currency, pay in full with DD at end of month so no interest to pay. Never had any problems just take the same precautions as you do with your DC and everything should be fine.
 
I’ve got several that I use for specific purposes.
Halifax and Nationwide as they give good rates abroad.
Marks's credit card for M&S vouchers.
American Express. Recently took out an Amex Gold rewards card. Spend £3000 in first 3 months to get 20,000 bonus amex points (plus 3,000 points for the £3K spend). I also got 3000 points for adding Mrs Mottie to my account and I’ll get 9,000 for recommending our daughter. Amex points can be converted to avios points for use on British Airways plus others. Oh, and I get 4 free airport lounge entrances. Only catch - £160 annual fee payable from year 2 onwards so I will cancel it before then and Mrs Mottie can take one out with me as an additional cardholder.
 
If I pay off my CC monthly on time do I pay interest?
It depends on the terms of your agreement but typically you get up to about 2 months to pay for something interest free, then you're charged

Suppose your agreement runs from 1st of each month(the date your statement is issued). You buy something on Jan 1st. This won't be on the statement you get on Jan 1st. It will be on the Feb 1st statement which means you have until approx March 1st to get a payment to them to pay it off. If your March statement arrives and you haven't paid off the full amount of the item, then you're charged interest and that might be on the part or the whole.

Payments are typically allocated to the oldest item first. This means if you buy a 50 quid item on Jan 1st, and a 100 quid item on Jan 2nd, you're notified of both on the Feb statement.

If you make a payment of 100 quid on Feb 25th, 50 quid of that payment pays off the Jan 1st item and 50 quid is allocated against the 100 quid item. On the March statement you'll find you're being charged interest and that might either be against the 50 quid you still owe for the 100 quid item, or if they're really shafting you it might be interest on 100 quid even though you've paid part of it, and the interest runs from the date of the transaction. You might realise some crazy situation where you spend £10000, pay off £9999.99 of it and are then banged hundreds of pounds in interest because you haven't cleared the open item, even though you technically only owe 1p

None of this typically applies to cash taken out on a credit card, which accrues interest from the moment it is withdrawn til the moment it is paid off, and payments you make are often allocated to cash last.

If you're not paying your card in full, make sure you understand where your payments are going and what they're allocated against. If you balance transfer a large amount to a credit card and then start using it to buy more things you'll probably find your payments go to paying off the balance transfer, leaving your purchases to rack up healthy wedges of interest

All this is on your agreement; be sure to read it.

I recommend you set up a direct debit to pay the card off in full each month, and don't bounce it. Also leverage any sensible spending control and text message reminders they have.

no foreign exchange fees
Usually BS as there is no free lunch - there isn't a fee you see but it's built into the exchange rate you get. e.g. xe.com says 1 quid buys you 1.15 euros, but your local travel place either gives you 113 euros for your 100 quid because their rate is 1.13 or they charge you 101.75 quid when you ask for 115 euros because their rate is 1.15 and their fee is 1.75%. In these cases you notionally paid virtually the same amount

You'll need to work out what the cost is for your context of what you're going to purchase, and how often and when an fee applies (is it once a day, one per transaction etc)
 
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Trouble is a lot of places refuse amex
Only places I found so far that wouldn’t accept it was our vets and a florists that I use.
Used it to book hols, pay for fuel at Esso and Texaco, used it at Tesco, Lidl, Sainsbury’s, Co-op, Next, McDonalds, eBay, Amazon, B&Q, Wickes, Superdrug, Dyson, John Lewis, Mark's & Spencer, British Airways, our local Indian restaurant, and PayPal so fairly well accepted in most of the places that we use.
 
Only places I found so far that wouldn’t accept it was our vets and a florists that I use.
Used it to book hols, pay for fuel at Esso and Texaco, used it at Tesco, Lidl, Sainsbury’s, Co-op, Next, McDonalds, eBay, Amazon, B&Q, Wickes, Superdrug, Dyson, John Lewis, Mark's & Spencer, British Airways, our local Indian restaurant, and PayPal so fairly well accepted in most of the places that we use.
due to high fees many small businesses wont accept them and its not unusual to see the signs saying not accepted
 
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