Small purchases with BT card

Very few cards (if any) offer 0% purchases AND 0% BT's for the same length of time.

The advice is usually don't spend on 0% BT cards. Yes, your balance will gradually decline as you make the minimum payments but you won't be hit with unexpected interest payments.

My 0% BT cards live in a drawer and have never left the house. I have separate 0% purchases cards

ST-User wrote: »

Thanks for the answers. This card has got only a BT promotion, but I thought if the minimum payment can cover the monthly purchases, my payment will be used to clear the purchases balance first and I don't pay interest on these purchases either. Or do I?

You've already had the answer to that question in the very first reply. Did you read it? Perhaps you meant to ask 'why' this was the case? Well, it's because you only get an interest free period on purchases if you've cleared your last two statement balances in full...and you haven't. It's in your T&Cs. If you're struggling to find it perhaps if you say which card it is someone will tell you which specific condition relates.

I actually think this could be a reasonable idea, but I don't see a lot of people on here talking about it.

If you make a modest purchase of slight!y above the minimum payment, then clear it, the benefit of the full balance transfer amount will carry through to the end, rather than being maybe quarter of half paid off by then.

It's worth trying to time things differently. Instead of the ideal being buy just after one statement, then pay up by the due date on the next, instead in this regime the ideal would be buy just before a statement date and pay it off just after the same statement. But maybe don't worry about it too much, given than the interest on £25 is probably only just over a penny a day.

Superscrooge wrote: »

The reason people don't talk about it is that it wouldn't work! You pay interest on the purchase unless there was also a 0% promotion on purchases, or you cleared ALL the balance in full by the payment due date

Below is from Halifax T&C's but other CC's have similar wording

Purchases: We do not charge interest on purchases made during your latest statement period if you pay off your full balance (including any balance transfers and money transfers) by the payment due date and you also paid your previous month's balance in full by the due date.

What makes you say it doesn't work?

I wasn't suggesting the total avoidance of interest, but a way to continue with the full amount of the balance transfer to the end of the offer, for a cost of a few pence a month.

redux wrote: »

What makes you say it doesn't work?

I wasn't suggesting the total avoidance of interest, but a way to continue with the full amount of the balance transfer to the end of the offer, for a cost of a few pence a month.

redux - Valid point.

I didn't study your post carefully enough and thought you were assuming the purchase would be interest free, whereas we actually both agree that there would be some interest to pay.

Generally I believe it is good advice not to spend on BT cards as many people get caught out spending larger amounts on BT cards and then assuming that if they pay off just the purchase amount by the due date there will be no interest to pay, which wouldn't be the case.

But I do accept your argument that the interest amount would be small and that the method you suggest might be appropriate to some people,