can i do this?

Liquid_Stool

hi all,

about 4 months ago i transfered all my cc debt to what i thought was a good offer - 6.9% for life of balance. Today i recieved a flyer from the same bank (Halifax) offering me a 4.9% for life of balance transfer rate. the only catch i can see here, and this is what i'm not sure about is this: there appears to be a 2% fee. now does this mean that every month i'll be charged a 2% fee for the life of the transfer, or simply a 2% fee once? also, how would i go about transferring the outstanding balance on my current halifax classic card? Currently i have about £2500 debt on the Halifax classic and i want to transfer another £1000. Am i allowed to transfer the £2500 on the Halifax card to another card and then a week later transfer it and the extra £1000 back to the halifax card? am i making sense? i don't want to transfer £2500 from halifax and then find that i cant transfer it back, leaving me stuck with a 15.9% interest rate! Help!!

This is a time limited offer as well so i need to move fast!

thankyou guys and gals

bob_builder_2

You should be able to do what you want to do, but bear in mind you will be paying 15.9% on the £3500 for the time it is not with Halifax plus there might be another 2% charge to transfer the £2500 to the other card.

Your original offer of 6.9% is actually better than 4.9% + 2% admin if you pay the balance off in less than a year.

You will have to calculate whether it is actually worth the extra cost to save £50 per year on the £2500 (not counting for the fact that you will have to pay off a minimum amount every month so it would be less than £50).

Rafter

The 2% fee only applies once.

A 2% fee does increase the cost of the deal significantly, but if you are planning to make full use of the life of balance deal then it is not bad, particularly if there is a fee cap?

It should be possible to transfer the debt somewhere else and then back again onto the new offer.

However, you should be careful, some have tried this and then been refused as a result of a new credit check when the transfer back is made. As long as your credit history is OK you should be fine, but if you have debts elsewhere there may be a risk of being stuck with higher rate debt as you suggest.

Remember, a 2% fee upfront adds about 2.1% to the APR if you plan to repay over 1 year. So 4.9% becomes 7% (higher than your current 6.9%)

However, if you plan to repay over life of balance (assuming you pay 2.5% of balance per month) the impact of the 2% fee on the APR is fairly small (about 0.2%). So you end up paying the equivalent of 5.1% APR over the 10 years it would take you to repay this deal.

Good luck

R.

Liquid_Stool

thx guys - i think i've got it.....so if i'm planning to pay off the full transferred amount over a long term it's worth doing, if i'm gonna pay it off within a short time, i'm better of leaving it as it is?

does anyone know what the monthlies would be assuming i transferred all of it to this 4.9% deal approx figure of £3500 and then cut up the card? and what exactly is 2% of 3500quid?

one last thing, is TEXACO still running that 3% FLOBT? :beer:

thx peeps

YorkshireBoy

Liquid_Stool wrote:

does anyone know what the monthlies would be assuming i transferred all of it to this 4.9% deal approx figure of £3500 and then cut up the card? and what exactly is 2% of 3500quid?

The answer to both your questions is £70 (if typical Halifax 2% monthly repayments).

At 0.40% per month, your initial interest added will be £14, so the first payment will reduce the balance by £56

Rafter

And no. Texaco are no longer doing the 3.9% LOB deal. There are a few out there, but 4.9% is the best that you can get right now with Amex or 5.9% with various others including Morgan Stanley and Capital 1

R.

Liquid_Stool

ok

how about if i left the current halifax as it is, and instead just transferred £1200 to this 4.9LOB deal with halifax - is that better than oving the whole lot about?

bob_builder_2

Liquid_Stool wrote:

ok

how about if i left the current halifax as it is, and instead just transferred £1200 to this 4.9LOB deal with halifax - is that better than oving the whole lot about?

That seems like the simplest solution. You will only be charged £24 for this so you will have £2500 at 6.9% and £1224 at 4.9% LOB.