Phase 2 of my grand plan

stevewatersheddings · 12 December 2005 at 8:40PM

Hello all,

i am a newbie stoozer with my first 2 successful card applications totalling 16.5k and i am about to start requesting balance transfers and i have a couple of queries...please bear in mind i have never used a credit card before !!!

i have an Abbey SBT card (6.5k) and an LTSB BT card (10k), both have max BT fees of £50. To try to cut down on these fees,

Can i BT 10k from the Abbey to LTSB and then SBT the whole 16.5k into my pot (total £100 fees) OR
Do i have to SBT the Abbey 6.5k into my stooze pot, BT 10k from the Abbey to LTSB and then SBT that 10k into my stooze pot ? (total £150 fees)

Also, with the Abbey SBT's, the transfer to my stooze pot is via credit card cheque. Is it easiest to request these over the phone from Abbey and will i just need to provide my stooze pot account details and theyll do the rest ?

Finally, i am considering applying for a third card which i must source from another company other than Abbey MBNA and LTSB. Would i be best advised to hang fire because ive just applied for my first 2 cards ever this month. im sure i read somewhere that the unwritten rule is 2 or 3 cards every 6 months. however im keen to maximise my stooze pot without jeopardising future applications but conscious that the credit card companies will tighten up and i may miss out if i wait. Any advice ??

Thanks for your help,

Cheers,

Steve

pardal51 · 12 December 2005 at 9:36PM

steve,

I'm also a newbie stoozer...

I don't think that you can have a +ive balance on your Abbey (S)BT card. Therefore you'd have to SBT from your bank account to Abbey and then use your TSB to BT from Abbey then repeat...

However take a look at Egg money card which can be your routing card and it DOES allow you to have +ive balances. I understand that Egg money is a MUST-HAVE card for any stoozer.

It is well worth reading this and browse this.

Hope this helps!
PS: wait till the likes of YB and Clariman reply to your post

YorkshireBoy · 12 December 2005 at 9:38PM

Some comments...

1. Are you sure about the LTSB BT fee?

2. I wouldn't put the Abbey card into a £10K +ve balance, or even a £3.5K +ve balance as you suggest with your second method.

3. The alternative is 3 cheques @ £50 a time, but this would mean military precision, (if indeed you had enough time to complete all transactions) with the 2 BT's to LTSB to get them done within the first 6 weeks.

4. My Virgin cheques were sent a full 8 weeks after opening my account - not sure if you can "request" them earlier.

5. Make the Abbey cheque(s) payable to yourself, or someone you trust if you're using 3 of them and don't want to attract attention.

6. Regarding another application, I'd make it now, and then stop for a while, if your salary and other personal circumstances will stand it. The benefit of applying now is that although your recent searches will show on your credit report, the credit limits may not have been posted yet. Just make sure you don't go for another "time-bound" BT card like the HSBC. Think about the Co-op instead.

7. Do you regret not applying for Egg Money? This would have taken the full £10K from LTSB in one go, and left you with only one cheque to write for the Abbey SBT.

stevewatersheddings · 12 December 2005 at 11:38PM

1. You are right, brain disengaged, LTSB BT is free for 6 weeks after account opened

For the remaining points, it looks like ive dropped a clanger by not taking the Egg money. No worries, these things happen, lesson learnt !!

To stooze my limit now I would have to raise an SBT cheque initially with Abbey to transfer the 6.5K. Then i would have to BT 6.5k onto the LTSB card and write a 2nd SBT cheque. Then i would have to BT the remaining 3.5k onto the LSB card and write a 3rd SBT cheque. Hmmmm, bit messy

When you say i need military timing for the 2 BT's to LTSB, what sort of time do the BT's take and SBT cheques ? I have 6 weeks to BT the LTSB account to take the full 10k, is this not enough ? Also, do you think its possible there could be a delay before i can get access to the Abbey cheques ?

As the situation i am in now has a few possible problems regarding availablility of cheques, extra cost of 1 more BT to transfer to stooze pot and possibility of attracting attention, what other options have i got to rectify my beginners cockups ?!?

Im confident my salary and personal circumstances will stand another application. Should i now look at opening an Egg Money account to give me the option of BT'ing the LTSB in one hit or are there better options to better my current situation ?

Big thanks for your help again.

Steve

YorkshireBoy · 13 December 2005 at 12:03AM

What do your Abbey T&C's say about SBT's (or Money Transfers)? The definition is in the website T&C's, but does it apply to you? This will be a quicker way to create the debt for LTSB to take on (twice!).

Ask Abbey for some cheques ASAP.

Take the £6.5K from LTSB - if you get the other £3.5K done in time it will be a bonus. If not, reduce the LTSB limit to £7K to help you with your next card.

Decide whether to go for Egg Money, or another BT card. Egg Money has free SBT's so you could get the second (£3.5K) LTSB BT through it, and on to the stooze pot, if the account is opened quickly, but another BT card may give a limit that would help soften another £50 Abbey BT fee.

Regarding military precision, timescales are so unpredictable - and you have an awful lot of transactions to complete in 6 weeks. Is the clock ticking yet? ie have you returned the credit agreement/activated the LTSB account?

pardal51 · 13 December 2005 at 1:10PM

YorkshireBoy wrote:

Decide whether to go for Egg Money, or another BT card. Egg Money has free SBT's so you could get the second (£3.5K) LTSB BT through it, and on to the stooze pot, if the account is opened quickly, but another BT card may give a limit that would help soften another £50 Abbey BT fee.

Egg money gives instant decision. Card arrives between 5-10 WD, though this is a pretty busy time for mail delivery. I suppose if you apply ASAP to Egg money you will just lose 3/4 weeks interest, but still have your full TSB 10K onto a SA.

Hope everything goes well for ya :xmassign:

stevewatersheddings · 13 December 2005 at 2:00PM

Thanks YorkshireBoy,

Ok, current situation, clock is ticking on LTSB account, I activated it last night just before posting on the site, typical but never mind !!! The Abbey card application went 8 days ago so possibly another week or so tops before the card can be activated.

To me it seems that the Abbey card is the limiting factor here, Timewise in the time taken to process the number of cheques I need and also riskwise in attracting attention by needing to write a number of cheques to myself.

If I opened another SBT card then I could stooze the money out of LTSB with the new card in parallel with stoozing some of the money through the Abbey and also lose the risk of attracting attention. I guess the only downside in this is that opening another SBT card will not give me as much money to stooze than if I opened another BT card. Are there any other downsides ?

Being quite cautious in my first go, I’m slightly put off with attracting attention probably because I don’t know what the effects are (I assume reduced credit limits and application rejections) and I’m also slightly worried about messing up the amount of transactions required because I have no experience of how long it takes to process them. In addition, I’m conscious I’ll have my hands full trying to sort out organising my minimum monthly payments when I reach that stage shortly. So……I guess I’m erring on the side of caution. Does this sound too cautious ??

If I go with this plan, I can stooze the 6.5k limit from the Abbey and BT 6.5k to the LTSB and stooze that as well. At the same time, I apply for another SBT card (mucho prompto !!!) and hopefully have enough time to stooze that card to its limit and BT the remaining 3.5k to the LTSB card and stooze that out too.

Moving onto SBT cards, if I applied for an Egg Money card I could BT the whole 10k onto LTSB in one hit. However, am I right in saying this would only save on transfer fees? Would I not be better applying for a card that will give me some credit which will make more interest than the money I would lose on transfer fees ? Perhaps Virgin or Mint ?

Thanks pardal51,

I didnt know Egg gave you an instant decision. Thanks for that.
Ive picked the right time to become dependant upon the postman eh !

Thanks again,

Steve

YorkshireBoy · 13 December 2005 at 2:34PM

stevewatersheddings wrote:

Moving onto SBT cards, if I applied for an Egg Money card I could BT the whole 10k onto LTSB in one hit. However, am I right in saying this would only save on transfer fees? Would I not be better applying for a card that will give me some credit which will make more interest than the money I would lose on transfer fees ? Perhaps Virgin or Mint ?

First of all, you probably won't get accepted for a Virgin card because you already have Abbey and both are MBNA. Also, Mint will charge you a 2% (max £49) BT fee if done before 31st Jan 2006.

I've thought about this some more since last night and, if I was you, I'd get the Egg Money application in now, and route everything through that. Only consider the Abbey cheques as a last resort. Immediately after opening Egg Money, ask them to reduce the limit to, say, £1K so as not to impact too much on your next application.

One final thing on the £3.5K second BT we were talking about last night - is it worth doing if it will cost you £50 to get it SBT'd through Abbey?

Finally, did you have a look at your Abbey T&C's regarding the 'Money Transfer' definition?

pardal51 · 13 December 2005 at 2:39PM

stevewatersheddings wrote:

Moving onto SBT cards, if I applied for an Egg Money card I could BT the whole 10k onto LTSB in one hit. However, am I right in saying this would only save on transfer fees? Would I not be better applying for a card that will give me some credit which will make more interest than the money I would lose on transfer fees ? Perhaps Virgin or Mint ?Steve

Hey Steve don't think that you've messed up everything, after all you're making ££ for free;) I'm on the same boat, i.e., a novice stoozer, but with the help of the veteran stoozers we'll be laughing in 2006...

Read this and you'll understand why you "must" have an Egg money card in your hands. That's my opinion anyway...

fingers crossed you'll stooz all your CL from both cards...

cheers!!!

stevewatersheddings · 13 December 2005 at 6:39PM

Yorkshireboy,

First off, ive checked my Abbey Ts and Cs, the "money transfer" definition is - a transfer of funds from your account to another financial institution other than into a credit card or loan account.

However i cant see money transfers referenced in the rest of the Ts and Cs, particularly the section mentioning interest rates and handling fees. This section only details Card purchases, BTs, Cheque transactions and Cash transactions. How do money transfers affect me ?

Agreed with the Egg Money card and i'll apply asap.

PLAN A - Assuming the card is open before the 6 week LTSB no handling fee offer closes, i guess i'll transfer the whole 10k through the Egg account and limit the account to 1k after its cleared into my stooze pot. At the same time i can get a creditcard cheque to stooze the 6.5k from the Abbey card.

PLAN B - If for some reason the card doesnt open before the 6 week period then i'm back to original-ish plan where i'll creditcard cheque 6.5k into my stooze pot and then BT 6.5k to my LTSB and request another creditcard cheque to transfer that to my stooze. point taken on whether its worth taking the last 3.5k. i'll check it out but probably leave it because of the risk of generating attention on the 3rd cheque. In that situation is there any gain in asking LTSB to drop the card limit to 6.5k ?

Thanks Again,

Steve

YorkshireBoy · 13 December 2005 at 8:07PM

stevewatersheddings wrote:

First off, ive checked my Abbey Ts and Cs, the "money transfer" definition is - a transfer of funds from your account to another financial institution other than into a credit card or loan account.

However i cant see money transfers referenced in the rest of the Ts and Cs, particularly the section mentioning interest rates and handling fees. This section only details Card purchases, BTs, Cheque transactions and Cash transactions. How do money transfers affect me ?

Section 2b - Other Financial Information...

"Cash transactions: In the first nine months from the account opening date, we will charge interest at the rate of 22.9% p.a. (a year). After that, we will charge a standard rate of 22.9% p.a. (a year)."

Section 16 - Definitions...

"money transfer – a transfer of funds from your account to another financial institution other than into a credit card or loan account."

"cash transaction – a money transfer or any other transaction under which you receive cash or a cash substitute by using your card or card number, including foreign currency, traveller's cheques, postal orders, gambling transactions and transferring money electronically."

And finally, the icing on the cake...

Section 2d - Other Financial Information...

"We will charge a handling fee for all balance transfers, cheque transactions and cash transactions. All handling fees will be 2% of the amount of each transaction, and will be at least £3. For cheque transactions and balance transfers the handling fee will be no more than £50. There will be no maximum handling fee for cash transactions. We will charge an annual fee of £0."

https://wwwa.applyonlinenow.com/UKCCapp/Ctl/link?eid=DE767C25

stevewatersheddings wrote:

point taken on whether its worth taking the last 3.5k. i'll check it out but probably leave it because of the risk of generating attention on the 3rd cheque. In that situation is there any gain in asking LTSB to drop the card limit to 6.5k ?

It's a BT card only, so you shouldn't make any purchases on it. If you reduce it, you'll present £3.5K less available credit to your next card provider (if you wait for LTSB to update your CRA file).

Phase 2 of my grand plan

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