Bits: a good HMRC miles earning alternative?, Groupon / Avios deal back

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• Wally1976 says:

  13 Oct13 October 10:07

  OT – some new Amex offers this morning – £35 off £100 spend at Thistle Hotels, £55 off £200 at every Hotels, £55 off £200 at Amba Hotels and £55 off £200 at Guoman hotels. All only valid at specified London hotels.

  • Rob says:

    13 Oct13 October 10:16

    Thanks, will try to slot this in.

    • Wally1976 says:

      13 Oct13 October 14:58

      Some more info…this was only on one of our BACC cards by the way…

      All:
      Book, pay and stay by 17/12/17.

      Guoman:
      Offer only available on stays at The Royal Horseguards Hotel, The Grosvenor Hotel, The Tower Hotel and The Cumberland Hotel.

      Amba:
      Offer only available on stays at Amba Marble Arch and Amba Charing Cross hotels.

      Thistle:
      Offer only available on stays at Thistle City Barbican, Thistle Trafalgar Square, Thistle Euston, Thistle Bloomsbury, Thistle Holborn, The Kingsley, Thistle Hyde Park, Thistle London Heathrow and Thistle Poole.

      every Hotels:
      Offer only available on stays at every hotel Piccadilly. (sic)

      • Rob says:

        13 Oct13 October 17:17

        Thanks. Onto this, will slot it in over the weekend.

• New Card says:

  13 Oct13 October 10:26

  But how to get past the eligibility checker?

  • the real harry1 says:

    13 Oct13 October 14:52

    just be eligible!

    you could also open a new Amz a/c for your significant other?

    • Crafty says:

      13 Oct13 October 19:02

      Most people will have done this before in the last 2 years, the offer comes round frequently.

    • the real harry1 says:

      13 Oct13 October 19:14

      T&Cs say 2 years but it’s not actually excluding people who bought gcs in the last 2 years

      the only way to find out if you’re eligible is to use the eligibility checker on my link

• RussellH says:

  13 Oct13 October 11:17

  Not exactly on topic, but not irrelevant either.

  I took my partner’s car in for its service an hour ago and was asked to pay by direct bank transfer if possible.

  They started to charge 3% for Visa/MC credit cards about 18 months ago, insisting that they had never been charged a penny in handling fees before. I was told that no firm in the motor trade had previously paid credit card fees. (I do not believe that, but perhaps they had been dead lucky!)

  I wonder if this means that they plan to stop accepting credit cards at all, and if so, how many other businesses are thinking along the same lines.

  • Rob says:

    13 Oct13 October 11:50

    Would trust a garage with a bank transfer, knowing you have just given up your legal rights for a Section 75 charge back?

    • Anna says:

      13 Oct13 October 12:13

      Good point, but if you trust your garage, would this not be a good opportunity to use billhop, if you were going to be charged a credit card fee anyway?

      • RussellH says:

        13 Oct13 October 13:59

        Good thought, about Billhop. I have joined, but not used it yet. Hopefully it will be another year before I need their service, though!

        And yes, we do trust this dealership, not least because of the time and effort they invested on my partner’s behalf some years ago when they extracted a free new engine from the manufacturer, the one in the car being *!#!!?. The car was, by that time, well outwith its warranty period.

      • Mr dee says:

        13 Oct13 October 14:26

        If the fees the same you then there is no point as you would lose your section 75 like paying by bank transfer.

        Either find a new garage or just pay the fee, I would find a new garage as unless I am put f touch the motor trade has had to pay fees like others, perhaps lower is they are high volume customers.

    • the real harry1 says:

      13 Oct13 October 15:18

      if you want to avoid the 3%, just pay £1 on the card and the rest however you like – as long as the bill is over £100, you keep S75 protection

  • the_real_a says:

    13 Oct13 October 13:13

    Find another garage

• Stephen Lee says:

  13 Oct13 October 11:30

  Well done Rob over suggesting the Tesco debit card. I have been having a great time spending £20k a month at HMRC on my HSBC Premier card and MBNA/Virgin Visa Black to get up to 30,000 points a month. Unfortunately that drops to 6000 points a month using the Tesco debit card but better tha the kick in the teeth I thought I was going to suffer.

  I just had a brilliant idea. What if I prepaid HMRC £60k by mid-January for debt not yet incurred. Do you think they will just return the money ?

  Steve

  • Rob says:

    13 Oct13 October 11:48

    They often do return it, and always by bank transfer in my experience ….

    (I assume, if you ring and ask them not to refund it, they would hold onto it.)

    HMRC is a bit paranoid about refunding overpayments, I think they want to avoid a reputation for sitting on your money unnecessarily.

    • New Card says:

      13 Oct13 October 13:13

      I think you can request a repayment through your online tax account on the HMRC website.
      (This might only apply to self-assessment for individuals, no idea how it works for companies)

  • Mark says:

    13 Oct13 October 15:30

    I believe HMRC accept ‘estimated’ figures. You could over-estimate!

• Jonathan says:

  13 Oct13 October 12:06

  they say the return over paid vat and corporation tax…. got about £6k sitting with HMRC over the past year and never it’s never been returned. I’m not fused because my business account doesn’t earn any interest anyway but i am bang on for a large overpayment of two and see what happens. Worst case it becomes a bit of MS

  • Mr dee says:

    13 Oct13 October 14:29

    I believe the corporation tax could be an option to over pay but the vat would just be taken out of your next month/quarter.

• Mark says:

  13 Oct13 October 13:33

  Is there any better way to to pay large corporation tax bills (5/6 figures)?

• Anthony says:

  13 Oct13 October 14:24

  Anyone know if its possible to pay stamp duty with a Tesco debit card?

  • Mr dee says:

    13 Oct13 October 14:29

    If you can use a debit card then yes.

  • CV3V says:

    13 Oct13 October 21:03

    Just make sure and tell your solicitor you will be paying the stamp duty directly, and not through them.

• Aaron says:

  13 Oct13 October 15:00

  Is it better to use the Tesco Debt Card which gets Avios for nothing, or incur the credit card fees payable and get higher points on the Lloyds Avious Mastercard / HSBC Premier Free card – can’t seem to make sense of it as it appears that less Avios for FREE is better than more Avios at a cost?

  • Jonny says:

    13 Oct13 October 15:15

    I agree

    Tesco debit card gives you 0.24 Avios / £ (and possibility of more with a bonus, albeit not that likely these days). So realistically you’d need to have a credit card offering at least 0.75 Avios / £ (say) to make it worthwhile given the CC fees.

  • Genghis says:

    13 Oct13 October 15:23

    Tesco debit: 2.4/8 = 0.3 avios / £. Valued at 1p = 0.3% return net
    HSBC Premier free card: 0.5 avios / £. Valued at 1p = 0.5% the HMRC fee is a poorer return than Tesco debit.
    Lloyds MC: 1.25/5 = 0.25 avios / £. Valued at 1p = 0.25% return less the HMRC fee is a poorer return than the Tesco debit, but of course spend counts towards the £7k required for the upgrade voucher.
    With one of the higher earning credit cards, you’d be better off net, depending on your valuation of the points.

    • Aaron says:

      14 Oct14 October 05:03

      Thanks for the helpful response – signing up for the Tesco card now!

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