Is there a Canadian credit card which shows holds?

Question

It is really frustrating not being able to run a tight ship with my money. Neither CIBC nor TD shows them immediately. It is certainly possible because I ran across a Visa gift card which showed them. So is there a proper credit card that shows the holds immediately?

Answer 1

PC MasterCard recently added this as a new feature to their online system. It lets you see "Pending Authorizations" for your card when you log in. Their email said:

Along with your purchases, you'll see a list of every transaction that's been approved, but not yet applied to your balance. You'll be able to identify these with the word “Pending” in the date column.

Here's a link with more information: http://pcfinancial.ca/pendingauthorization/

Answer 2

It's not so much a credit card, but a financial institution's online platform that either provides this functionality or not.

The following Canadian financial institutions show an itemized list of pre-authorized transactions (not an exhaustive list):

1. RBC Online Banking (both personal and business).
2. PC Financial.

The following institutions show a total value of pre-authorized transactions:

1. MBNA.ca (which is now owned by TD)
2. HBC Financial (The Hudson's Bay)

Most other institutions show the available credit (e.g. Chase Financial used by Amazon Rewards), which give an indication of how much you have to spend. By subtracting the current balance and the available balance from the total credit limit, you can get an indication of the total amount of pre-authorized transactions.

Example:

Credit Limit: $1000
Current Balance: $500
Available Credit: $400

$1000 - $500 - $400 = $100 is the amount of pre-authorized transactions.

From TD's EasyWeb demo (http://tdeasywebdemo.com/v2/#/en/PFS/accounts/activity/chq), it appears that they don't include pre-authorized transactions in the Available Credit.

You can verify for yourself by logging in to online banking after you make a purchase and comparing the Available Credit to [Credit Limit - Current Balance]. If it is equal, then they don't include, if it is different (most likely for the value of the transaction), then they do.

Answer 3

As for PC Mastercard like stated by @nullability, VISA Desjardins list the "Pending Authorizations" almost instantly (the time it's take to get back home) in AccesD (Their Web portal for managing accounts).