While purchases on these cards are interest-free for a number of months, you’ll need to check if other uses such as balance transfers are as well.
For example, from our best buys below, M&S Bank, Virgin Money and Sainsbury’s Bank all let you transfer a balance over to the same 0% period you would receive for spending, after a one-off fee (these vary from 2.9% to 3% of the balance you’re transferring). See our Best All-Rounders guide for full info.
Cash withdrawals are a different case, and you’ll usually pay interest from the date of making the cash withdrawal until it’s paid off.
This means you’ll most probably see an interest charge on the first statement after the cash withdrawal, which is the interest charged from the date you made the withdrawal until the date the statement was issued.
But you may also see interest charged on the following statement. There’ll be a delay between your statement being drawn up, and you paying it. It may be a couple of days, it may be a couple of weeks, but you’ll be charged interest on the cash withdrawal until you pay it off.
