I hate

Wow, I’m 42 and have never had a credit card. Should I?

I held out 'till I was about 50.

The only thing I use one for is the deposit payment when hiring a car abroad.

lol I can't afford to shop at sainsbury's!

Tru dat. It's pricey as fuck.

Wow, I’m 42 and have never had a credit card. Should I?

36 and I've never had one - the 'only' loan I have is a mortgage. I do like the sound of the protection you get with a credit card though...

I got my first credit card in my late 30s. Used it specifically for one trip abroad to visit family and haven't used it since.

Lidl and Aldi aren’t far behind iirc? Tescos are the ones that have lost the plot.

Credit cards offer better consumer protection and better fraud protection.

Also some, like Amex, give you decent travel insurance when buying your trip through them.

Less of a thing now, but Nationwide for example have good fx rates/charges/etc. on foreign purchases.

I am 34 and only just got one. A useful point I found out on the protection is that you're covered as long as you spend over £100 on the item. So you can buy some windows for example for £5k, put £100 on the credit card and the rest by bank transfer and you're covered for the whole amount. Seemed worth it for expensive items, even if not for the points.

You can also just immediately pay it off from your current account and still have the credit card protection so it's just as if you paid on debit card

There are good reasons to have a credit card but only if can afford to use it like a debit card.

I got my first just to build my credit rating back up after trashing it with some questionable financial decisions at uni.

If you have fuck all money they're a nightmare as you just get stuck in a cycle of paying off the interest but if you can afford to just pay off the full amount each month then you can benefit from cashback perks and extra protection.

Also if you earn decent money you get loads of interest free offers that you can port to other cards for small fee once the interest only period ends. Allows people to spread the cost of expensive items over years for relatively little interest.

Tldr - perks for people with money funded by trapping poor people in endless debt.

Top tip for travelling to big cities in Brazil (and possibly other “developing” places): the stalls and hawkers on the beach take credit card payment and give you cash. So if you’re buying something, or even just need cash but prefer to pay £1 to a local instead of a bank, you can approach them and they’ll usually oblige if it’s not an unusually large amount of cash.

use it like a debit card.

My first query when poster above asked about a CC was ‘how disciplined are you with money?’.

That’s more what I was thinking, just use the CC for whatever I’d use my debit card for usually, and then just pay it off once a month. I just didn’t realise there were actual real life benefits, assumed it’s all a big scam

As for Avios… I hate flying and so avoid it!

Try to minimise flying too, so my Avios get used on rental cars as we don't own a car. (Although I should check whether I'd get more for them by just converting them to Nectar points and using those to pay for shopping in Saino's).

I've had credit cards (Mastercard and, more recently, Amex) since I was 21 or so. I use them for pretty much everything I can, almost nothing goes on the debit card. And in 25 years I've not paid them off in full each month about three times, and these were a calculated use of credit for an extra month to carry me over.

There are a few local shops where I'll use a debit card as I know the shopkeepers and they pay lower fees for debit cards. (This is why a lot of places don't accept Amex, is even more expensive for the retailer.)

I've needed credit cards for hotel stays through work over the years, or deposits for rental cars (personal and work trips). There were definitely times I couldn't have covered these things with my debit card balance.

I've not paid them off in full each month about three times

We are very different people.

Range Rovers. Specifically new ones. Never in the field of car design has a vehicle successfully pulled of the ‘f**k you and everything you believe in you insignificant speck of shite’ look as well as this monumental, enviro-nuke, oik-snob’s wet-dream of a car.

Much as I agree with the sentiment, I refer you to the original Hummer, and the latest generation of ‘family pickup’ trucks in the US.

I'd like to see sales in this category, I'm seeing more of these in the UK too, Ford Rangers etc.

Defo loads more near me. Seeing a few with those massive wheels that poke out the side too. So incredibly unnecessary.

Need more tyre extinguisher action

Very tax efficient to buy one of these so not that surprising.

Loads of subcontractors buy pickups as “work” vehicles, but basically just commute in them, as they’re seen as preferable if you’re not really using them for work duties.
Nicer to have a pickup to cruise around in than a van. Mental really.

… flying. Despite being a Civil Engineer with a strong grasp on hazards, risks and also in Mechanical Engineering, it worries the life out of me.

And then add to that the whole process is addled with rigmarole - queue, bag drop, queue, security (with people who seemingly have never flown before or who somehow missed the 2006 news about the liquid bomb terror plot), queue, passport control (with people who can’t answer basic questions like “when will you fly home”), queue, board (with people who then have to rifle through their bag for passport and boarding pass, despite repeated requests to the contrary by the ground staff at the gate), queue, get seated. Then do most of that in reverse at the destination. Probably a good deal later than expected, if at all.

Our flight last Friday was cancelled due to weather in Europe (other carriers flew from and into the same airports), so we had to fly at 7am from Stansted. Then yesterday, we were delayed by two hours because the fuel gauge was broken and Engineers had to make manual checks on the tarmac.

I’m off to Mallorca with the bike, end of this month, and after that my better half will have to make exceptionally strong arguments for me to book on a flight within the next 12months. Fucking sick of it.

Oh, and Doncaster. Absolute fucking shithole where all the blokes walk round either asking for change or looking for a fight.

Trains FTW

https://www.seat61.com/Spain.htm#london-to-menorca-or-majorca-by-train in your case. Eurostar have started taking bikes on the same train (with some complications). Does take longer but no airport shit.

Yeah, but no, but - bikes on Eurostar is a total non-service. Jokes.

It's such a shame.