Compare Credit Cards, Pet Insurance and Savings Accounts

15/07/09 UPDATE: The Direct Line Pet Insurance online discount for has now gone up to 20%.

If you apply for a Direct Line Pet Insurance quote before 31st July 2009 you will be entered into a prize draw for £1,000 worth of Pets at Home vouchers.

You will also get an additional 10% discount if you apply for your pet insurance quote online.

Plus, if you insure more than one pet with Direct Line, you will receive a further 15% discount.

What’s more, in the event you need to claim, Direct Line will pay the vet direct and there is just a fixed one-off excess to pay per condition.

The insurance will cover your pet per condition so there is no restriction on the number of times you can make a claim.

Also included in the cover is up to £1,000 for pet boarding costs should you ever need to be hospitalised.

Click the link for more information about Direct Line Pet Insurance.

This offer is current as of 30th JUNE 2009. Terms and Conditions apply. For more offers please refer to the Offers section of compareandsave.com’s ‘Your money matters blog’.

If you are a new customer and buy Sainsbury’s Pet Insurance online before 4th August 2009, you will receive 12 months for the price of 9.

A comprehensive pet insurance policy from Sainsbury’s provides £7,500 in vets’ fees cover, however lower cost options offering less cover are available.

There is no time limit on vets’ fees claims, which means you can still claim 12 months after the event providing you have kept up to date with your premiums.

In addition, there is no maximum age for vets’ fees so this cover is suitable for older pets.

What’s more, when you take out Sainsbury’s pet cover you will receive a free 12 month membership for Petback Protect from the Missing Pets Bureau.

Click the link for more information on Sainsbury’s Pet Insurance.
 

This offer is current as of 30th JUNE 2009. Terms and Conditions apply. For more offers please refer to the Offers section of compareandsave.com’s ‘Your money matters blog’.

We have just added two types of FairFX prepaid card to compareandsave.com. Both cards offer better exchange rates than those you would get on the high street and both can be applied for online in a very hassle-free process.

The FairFX Dollar Prepaid Card is free to compareandsave.com customers when it is loaded with at least $20 (the card usually costs £9.95).

The FairFX Euro Prepaid Card is also absolutely free to compareandsave.com customers when it is loaded with at least €10.

By using a FairFX prepaid card you are set to save up to 5% of the costs you would incur by using a debit or credit card abroad and both are free to use in purchase transactions in the UK and overseas.

The only charge you will incur from either one of the cards is when you use them to withdraw cash from ATMs. The charge will be £1/€1.50/$2 in the UK and overseas. It’s even free to top up the card.

In addition, both prepaid cards have the added benefit of chip and pin protection, are valid for 36 months and there are no other hidden charges.

You can now apply for two types of Eclipse Prepaid Card, which can be used in over 28 million outlets accepting MasterCard worldwide, through compareandsave.com.

The Eclipse card comes with Chip and PIN technology, making it a lot less vulnerable to fraud, and works in much the same way as a pay-as-you-go mobile phone card because you ‘load’ the credit onto the card and then it’s ready to be used.

Plus, you can never get into debt with a prepaid card because you aren’t offered a credit facility so once the money runs out on the card you can’t spend more until you top it up again.

However, the Eclipse prepaid cards can also help you to build or repair your credit rating.

You will be able to top up your card at over 34,000 high street top up locations, have access to online account management and benefit from comprehensive customer service.

What’s more, you can choose from two types of Eclipse prepaid card, a Pay As You Go scheme, where you pay the UK transaction fees that come with your card as you use it, or a Pay Monthly scheme, where you pay a fixed fee for the month to cover the cost of the UK transaction fees.

Click the link for more information about the Eclipse Prepaid Card.

If you are a new customer and get a quote for Churchill Car Insurance by 31 July 2009, you will receive free level one breakdown cover (provided by Green Flag but referred to as ‘Churchill Breakdown Service’) with your motor insurance policy.

You will also receive 15% off the price of your policy if you apply for it online and 10% discount on new policies you take out on additional cars in your household.

What’s more, named drivers on your policy will earn their own no claims discounts to use on their own Churchill motor insurance policies.

Additional benefits include a 24-hour accident recovery and helpline, new for old on cars less than 12 months old (if you are the first owner and registered keeper) and personal accident cover if you buy a comprehensive car insurance policy.

Breakdown cover provider Green Flag has one of the UK’s biggest networks of breakdown specialists and has an average national response time of 30 minutes.

Click the link for more information about Churchill Car Insurance

This offer is current as of 25th JUNE 2009. Terms and Conditions apply. For more offers please refer to the Offers section of compareandsave.com’s ‘Your money matters blog’.

AA Pet Insurance has now been added to the compareandsave.com pet cover comparison table and, if you apply online, comes with a 10% discount.

You can choose from either Bronze, Silver or Gold cover depending on your individual needs and circumstances.

The Bronze option comes with £1,000 of vet fees cover, but this increases to £3,000 with the Silver option and £5,000 with the Gold. The Silver and Gold options also come with cover towards advertising and a reward should your pet go missing.

The cover you will receive does not come with a time limit and will continue to be available until the pet insurance policy limit has been reached.

Plus, you will not be charged interest if you choose to pay monthly but instead will only incur a 50p per month admin fee for choosing to pay in instalments.

Click the link for more information about AA Pet Insurance.

You can now apply for Green Flag Euro Plus Breakdown Cover, which comes with 90 days cover when you are travelling in Europe for cars less than 16 years of age, on compareandsave.com.

This vehicle-based breakdown cover from Green Flag will provide you with many great features including:

• ‘Local vehicle recovery’ so that if your car cannot be fixed at the side of the road, Green Flag will arrange for your car to be taken to the nearest garage
• ‘Cover at home’ in case your car breaks down while it is still at your home
• ‘Long distance recovery’ which will enable Green Flag to take both you and your car to your home or to another destination of your choice
• ‘Car hire/alternative transport/overnight accommodation’ if your car cannot be fixed locally that day

Green Flag operates a 24 hour a day service throughout the full 365 days of the year.

Click the link for more information about Green Flag Euro Plus Breakdown Cover.

The MBNA Platinum Credit Card now offers new customers 0% on balance transfers for 13 months (subject to a 2.9% admin fee) and 3 months interest-free purchases.

To qualify for the balance transfer offer, balances must be moved over to the credit card within 90 days of account opening.

You will be able to access your account details via online account management facilities which have been dubbed as ‘great’ by a compareandsave.com reader in a review of the MBNA card. If you haven’t got to grips with online account management yet you will still have access to 24 hour, UK-based customer service over the telephone.

There is no annual fee to pay on the card and you will get Fraud Protection, which means that you won’t be liable for fraudulent transactions made via the internet or high street on the condition that you inform MBNA as soon as you notice any unusual transactions.

Click the link for more information on the MBNA Platinum Credit Card.

Prepaid cards are often mistakenly called ‘Prepaid Credit Cards’, however this isn’t actually the case – they are not credit cards in the strictest sense.

This is because they do not come with a credit facility from a lender and you therefore don’t go accumulate debt when you spend on a prepaid card.

Credit only becomes available on a prepaid card once you have loaded the money on to it.

With this confusion has come the question of whether or not you receive the same cover that comes with credit cards, specifically protection under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, on prepaid cards. The answer to this is no, you do not get this protection as standard.

Section 75 holds your credit card provider ‘jointly and severally’ liable for purchases between the values of £100 and £30,000 made using your credit card. This means that if there is a problem with the product or service you buy on your card, you can seek a refund from your credit card provider if the original supplier does not meet the contract of purchase and won’t give you your money back, i.e. by failing to deliver the item you ordered or if the company goes bust.

The reasoning behind it is quite simple – you get protection under Section 75 because there is a credit agreement between you and the credit card company. With prepaid cards, there is no such credit agreement.

However, with most rules there are exceptions. The CashPlus Prepaid Card offers consumers the chance to build their credit rating by lending them the sum of the 12 monthly payments required on the card when it is first taken out. The consumer then pays the monthly charge as normal but gets a tick on their credit report each month for using credit sensibly. Because there is a credit agreement in place here, Section 75 applies to purchases made on the card.

If you are not already a customer of HSBC, you can now apply for the HSBC Credit Card, which comes with 0% on balance transfers for 15 months (subject to a 2.9% admin fee);
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What’s more, it also comes with 0% on purchases for three months from the date the account is opened and a competitive typical APR of 16.9%.

There’s no annual fee to pay and you will be able to manage your credit card account online, via the phone or by popping into a branch of HSBC.

You need to be at least 18 years of age to apply for this card and need to pass HSBC’s credit checks.

Click the link for more information about the HSBC Credit Card.