Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

[baggas]

Cheers.
Have cancelled my direct debit now. Unfortunately my last Telstra account was paid on the 5th of April so I now have zero outstanding.
Do I have to wait for my next bill in a couple of weeks or can I start making account payments now using my Bankwest card and put it in a positive balance?

 

[asg29e]

Cheers.
Have cancelled my direct debit now. Unfortunately my last Telstra account was paid on the 5th of April so I now have zero outstanding.
Do I have to wait for my next bill in a couple of weeks or can I start making account payments now using my Bankwest card and put it in a positive balance?

Try it and see. I think it will work.

I don't think you needed to cancel the direct debit. I doubt that your direct debit would have been for a fixed amount. More like balance owing. For example, if you had lots of overseas roaming one month I'm sure Telstra's computers would manage to extract the correct amount for the direct debit. No different if you owe less in any particular billing cycle.

 

[baggas]

Thanks.
Next ignorant question.. whereabouts are you actually making the Telstra payments? In the My Telstra page "Pay My Bill" section?

This page tells me there is a "debit card and credit card fee" of $2.332. Now surely this is not per transaction or it makes the whole thing ridiculous. Is this a once a month fee covering all debit/credit card payments? Or is there some way of avoiding it completely?

Debit card and credit card fees

When paying with a debit card or credit card you’ll be charged a service fee in addition to any payment processing fee that may apply (see table below).
To avoid paying a debit card or credit card service fee you can set up Direct Debit or pay via PayPal.​

 

[asg29e]

Thanks.
Next ignorant question.. whereabouts are you actually making the Telstra payments? In the My Telstra page "Pay My Bill" section?

This page tells me there is a "debit card and credit card fee" of $2.332. Now surely this is not per transaction or it makes the whole thing ridiculous. Is this a once a month fee covering all debit/credit card payments? Or is there some way of avoiding it completely?

Debit card and credit card fees

When paying with a debit card or credit card you’ll be charged a service fee in addition to any payment processing fee that may apply (see table below).
To avoid paying a debit card or credit card service fee you can set up Direct Debit or pay via PayPal.​

I think that is just an example. When you pay by CC it says somewhere that the fee is 1%. But I understand that Telstra has difficulty calculating the 1% on $0.01 payments so even that does not apply.

 

[coles525]

Your account can be in as much credit as you wish, if they don't want your $$, they are extra stupid!

 

[baggas]

Awesome. Thanks guys.
Just to be absolutely clear, you're all doing transactions of 0.01 on the My Telstra site, either manually or using a script right?

now all I have to do is find where I put that card

 

[Deleted member 29185]

Your account can be in as much credit as you wish, if they don't want your $$, they are extra stupid!

OT but my Westpac Altitude Platinum was in credit by a fair amount so I did a transfer and the mongrels charged their cash advance percentage fee, so be careful about having a CC account in credit and then wanting to transfer cash out of it again!

 

[FrankC]

Your account can be in as much credit as you wish, if they don't want your $$, they are extra stupid!

OT but my Westpac Altitude Platinum was in credit by a fair amount so I did a transfer and the mongrels charged their cash advance percentage fee, so be careful about having a CC account in credit and then wanting to transfer cash out of it again!

I think coles525 was referring to having Telstra account in credit, not a credit card account

 

[Deleted member 29185]

I think coles525 was referring to having Telstra account in credit, not a credit card account

That'll teach me for only reading some posts!

 

[coles525]

That'll teach me for only reading some posts!

Correct

 

[craiglm]

Your account can be in as much credit as you wish, if they don't want your $$, they are extra stupid!

And if your Telstra account gets a long way in credit, Telstra will let you use the credit against a new phone.

So just think of the extra payments as a savings plan

 

[Skyring]

OT but my Westpac Altitude Platinum was in credit by a fair amount so I did a transfer and the mongrels charged their cash advance percentage fee, so be careful about having a CC account in credit and then wanting to transfer cash out of it again!

The BankWest card isn't a credit card as such, it's preloaded. Withdrawing money out is just like any other savings account.

 

[Kheng]

You don't have to wait, you can make payments so your account is in credit

 

[ETA_2022]

Do you mean with Telstra, you just initiate one payment and then refresh 49 times to "re-initiate" the transaction and complete the 50 daily transactions?!...

Yes Telstra. Once you have your payment receipt, you can refresh to make another payment.

 

[ETA_2022]

... My understanding is, I can use this to pay 50 x 1c transactions per day off my Telstra bill, using the Telstra website, and thus earn 250 points per day (7500 per month) for $15 worth of transactions. Am I correct?

When you use the card to pay, you can earn 7,500 points for $15, per card, per month.

Couple of questions about the Telstra side of things. My Telstra account is currently set to direct debit from one of my credit cards each month. Should I cancel this? Does Telstra allow the account to go into a positive balance? ...

Telstra do allow your account to go into credit, so start paying ASAP, and get a second card ASAP too.

I expect, if you left the credit card direct debit in place, they would adjust the amount of your payment, for any payments upto a few days prior to the direct debit. If they didn't, those payments would count as a credit on your next bill. So nothing to lose by trying.

Also doesn't paying via a credit card direct debit avoid credit card processing fees? If you have to pay from a credit card to cover any amount over $15 per month, you'll be hit with a credit card processing fee, won't you?

Pay at https://www.my.telstra.com.au/myaccount/paybill?pvt_access_mode=true#empty

 

[illumination]

Yes Telstra. Once you have your payment receipt, you can refresh to make another payment.

That's pretty awesome. That sounds faster/easier than EnergyAus... I've found EnergyAus to be overall pretty damn good but if you can simply refresh after obtaining a receipt that sounds like the easiest one so far.

Too bad I don't have a Telstra account to pay off!

 

[Skyring]

That's pretty awesome. That sounds faster/easier than EnergyAus... I've found EnergyAus to be overall pretty damn good but if you can simply refresh after obtaining a receipt that sounds like the easiest one so far.

Too bad I don't have a Telstra account to pay off!

I do. I can send you the details.

I've got one script to populate the fields for the account and credit card details. I then hit the various confirm/continue buttons and run my second script with is just a refresh with a loop count of 49.

However, I'm getting a timeout error now and then, which stymies the refresh loop. Not sure I want to manually hit refresh 49 times.

Incidentally, I'm reading this thread from the start. It's fascinating to see the light bulbs gradually come on.

 

[Radio8tiv]

<snip>

Also doesn't paying via a credit card direct debit avoid credit card processing fees? If you have to pay from a credit card to cover any amount over $15 per month, you'll be hit with a credit card processing fee, won't you?

I pay any remainder to Telstra via PayPal and can use a high points earn Amex that way without fees

 

[Kheng]

Any ideas on how to utilize the excess credit on your Telstra account? Seems a waste to have it sit there.

 

[whitty]

Any ideas on how to utilize the excess credit on your Telstra account? Seems a waste to have it sit there.

You might be able to use it for google play credit or something if it's a mobile account? If it's your home phone how are you getting excess credit with $15/mo from 1c transactions?