Wrongly timed BT - will Nationwide repay me credit balance?

laurat

I stupidly got my dates wrong applying for my new 0% BT (HSBC) card and left it a bit too late. My application (on which I requested a BT to meet the end of my Nationwide 0% offer) has been successful and is in the process of being set up. However, my Nationwide offer ends at the end of this week so I'm paying it off manually.

If I do let HSBC go ahead and action the BT (presuming of course, I could even stop them doing so at this point) and my Nationwide card is put into a large credit balance, where do I stand?

Does anyone know if Nationwide would just repay me my money if I explain my mistake? And would they charge me (eg. a cash advance fee) for doing so?

Thanks in advance,
Laura

Milarky

Why not simply allow for a few days 'overlap' by letting HSBC make the transfer and not manually repay NW [or only pay them a small amount to cover any interest due?]. How many days are we talking about here?

If you have a credit balance on the NW card however you can request a balance transfer to another credit card only [I don't think they would do 'refunds' but they might - you'll have to ask them about this.]

If you have an Egg card it is particularly simple. BT 'from' Egg 'to' NW [cash goes the other way, of course] and then BT 'from' a current account 'to' Egg. Unlike most bank to bank transfers BTs only take one working day between NW and Egg [most take at least two]. So the next day you can then transfer this amount 'from' your current account 'to' Egg card, and it need only take you three days altogether, rather than the usual minimum of four days, to turn around.

e.g HSBC <--- 'BT' [£X]--- NW [bit late arriving]; NW <--- 'BT' [£X - £25] ---- EGG [1 working day]

EGG [ £X -£25 in credit] <--- 'BT' [£X - £25]--- current account [2 working days]

Alternatives to Egg are 'fee free' credit card cheques if you have them but using them is an 'inferior method if it will require you to guess dates and incur more interest than necessary. There are several 'free' issuers I'm aware of such as:

Gold Fish [division of Lloyds],

Scottish Widows [division ofd Lloyds],

RBS MINT

[Halifax/HBOS seem to have gone over to charging fees on cheques now]

[As ever, check the terms and conditons before use in case they no lomger apply]

laurat

Thanks for your reply.

Milarky wrote:

Why not simply allow for a few days 'overlap' by letting HSBC make the transfer and not manually repay NW [or only pay them a small amount to cover any interest due?]. How many days are we talking about here?

I had thought about this, but am reluctant to as the balance has been at 0% for 9 months, so don't really want to then incur interest on it (for about a week). I believe the interest would be calculated from the original transaction date, so may be a fair bit.

Milarky wrote:

If you have an Egg card it is particularly simple. BT 'from' Egg 'to' NW [cash goes the other way, of course] and then BT 'from' a current account 'to' Egg. Unlike most bank to bank transfers BTs only take one working day between NW and Egg [most take at least two]. So the next day you can then transfer this amount 'from' your current account 'to' Egg card, and it need only take you three days altogether, rather than the usual minimum of four days,

That's a good idea I hadn't thought of. I do already have an Egg card. However, last month was my anniversary month so I SBT'd my Egg credit limit from my current account. How would then transferring a credit balance from NW to Egg affect this - is it do-able? Sorry, am just trying to get my head around it!

Many thanks for your help

Milarky

laurat wrote:

I had thought about this, but am reluctant to as the balance has been at 0% for 9 months, so don't really want to then incur interest on it (for about a week). I believe the interest would be calculated from the original transaction date, so may be a fair bit.

That's a good idea I hadn't thought of. I do already have an Egg card. However, last month was my anniversary month so I SBT'd my Egg credit limit from my current account. How would then transferring a credit balance from NW to Egg affect this - is it do-able? Sorry, am just trying to get my head around it!

That won't work, I fear. If October was your anniversary month you can't now BT 'to' Egg [i.e. cash to bank] at 0% - you can't use it as a 'mule' during months 2 to 5. [This was the main reason I originally applied for an Egg 'blue' - now the Egg 'money' - card. With a second Egg card which also does fee free SBTs you have the added flexibility you require]

Anyway, back to Nationwide. How can "the interest ... be calculated from the original transaction date" if the NW card was a staightforward balance transfer? If you have also made purchases during the period then that might be different, I suppose, but I can't really see how? If you have some purpchases, the longest those could be backdated would be a month and a bit - corresponding to the most recent cycle. Any purchases going back earlier would be out of that cycle [In other words, if they have raised previous statements on which interest was not charged for purchases then the latest cycle cannot now go back and charge for them. It can only go back to the final statement period's tranactions.] And I would argue that to seek to apply any interest charges for any time before the end of the 0% period was ruled out by the '0%' period specifically.

So I think the worst you can be looking at now is just the days between the NW 0% ending and the HSBC getting there - about 1 week or 0.3% of the balance - not anything to lose sleep over. The only 'caveat' I can enter is make sure that any minimum payment is made by the due date and don't rely on the HSBC transfer to cover this small amount.