Another newbie stoozer

wizzer55

Wondered if anyone can explain what I need to do now please?

Got a Virgin card in Dec 2005 with a credit limit of £4,000. Did a balance transfer into my current account, then into my ING savings account.

Got an Egg Money card in Dec 2005 with a credit limit of £2,000.

Got an Abbey card in Jan 2006 with a credit limit of £1,000.

How would I get the money from Egg & Abbey into my current account and would I pay any transfer fees?

I'm not sure about the +ve and -ve balances on Egg. Had a right grilling from them to get the Egg Money card. Had to give up my Egg Green card with a credit limit of £3,500 to get the Egg Money card, they wouldn't let me have both!

Apologies for being nice but dim but I've read the articles in the forum for so long, without it sinking in, it's giving me headache! And I don't want to !!!! it up from the start so any advice would be much appreciated.

YorkshireBoy

First of all, and you're not going to like this, you really should have done a bit more homework and delayed your start until you had a (better) plan!

Anyway, briefly...

Will the Abbey T&C's allow you to SBT from your current account? If so, then do what you did with Virgin. However, if they have the new 'Money Transfer' definition, then the only way you can get at this credit limit is to wait until they send you some cheques, or BT from Egg Money - and move the resultant +ve balance on to your stooze pot. You will pay Abbey a 2% fee for using the cheques, or carrying out the BT, but both options should be at 0% interest. Having said all that, you might want to do some sums first...

To BT £950 will cost you £19 in Abbey fees.
This £950 in ING will net you £25 interest (ignoring tax & £5 minimum payments)
So, you might make £4.80 after tax over the 9 months.

In light of this I'd probably be tempted to either give up the Abbey card, or use it for spending and pay it off in full each month.

The Egg Money card does not offer a 0% BT in itself. It is 'fed' with cash by other BT cards.

Giving up an old Egg Card with fee-free BT's was possibly the worst thing you could have done, as a new stoozer. Not only did it have the same fee-free BT's that Egg Money has, it also has an anniversary offer - giving you 5 months 'free' stoozing each year.

Finally, you've read the articles on this site, but have you also visited https://www.stoozing.com?

wizzer55

Thanks for the quick reply YorkshireBoy,
will check on the Abbey T & C's. Got some very bad advice on the Egg card by the looks of things too. Looks like it's back to the drawing board.

musicbox77uk

Hi. just also replied to another string which YorkshireBoy was adding to; same question for me - I still have an old egg green card, but with a miserable £750 limit. Does this mean I can only use it as a mule for 90% of this at a time, or can I load it first from my 0% Lloyds card up to the limit of the Lloyds card (significantly greater)?

Maybe creating a positive balance can only be done on the new Egg Money card?

Ps; not many of you mention the ICICI savings account? Seems a good deal to me - is there a catch?

Cheers.

YorkshireBoy

@musicbox77uk

I'm not certain, but I *think* you'll have trouble SBT'ing anything more than 95% of your £750 limit.

I have had a small (<£1K) +ve balance on my pre-May 1st 2005 Egg Card last year and, from memory, I was still only allowed to SBT 95% of my limit - not 95% of (the sum of) my limit plus the +ve balance if you see what I mean?

I suppose you could try phoning them to see if they'll manually do a BACS transfer for you, but I wouldn't recommend it if the +ve balance was large as such a transaction is unusual to say the least. I've seen reports of £10K +ve balances on Egg Cards, but these have been SBT'd online with no Egg CSA involvement. Personally, I'd never risk such a situation and would SBT off first and incur a small interest charge.

In your situation, I'd be tempted to either try to get the limit increased on your Egg Card, or swap it for/apply for Egg Money instead.

Re the ICICI question...check out the horror stories in the Savings & Investment forum - there's no way I'd trust them with my stooze pot.

wizzer55

Back from the drawing board (eventually!).

Got rid of the Abbey card, and got a LTSB Platinum card with £5,700 credit limit on it. With my Egg Money card credit limit only being £2,000 does this mean that I can't SBT £5,000 from LTSB through Egg to my savings account? If yes what would be the best way to do it please?

Once again I'm very grateful for all the time you expert stoozers give to us newbies.

Milarky

wizzer55 wrote:

With my Egg Money card credit limit only being £2,000 does this mean that I can't SBT £5,000 from LTSB through Egg to my savings account? If yes what would be the best way to do it please?

Once again I'm very grateful for all the time you expert stoozers give to us newbies.

If you put £5,000 into the Egg money 'account' via a balance transfer 'to' the Lloyds account you will have a credit balance of £5,000 initially with Egg money at 4% gross. To withdraw this - by means of a SBT to your bank/savings accounts - you should be able to access the whole credit balance irrespective of your 'debit' limit of £2,000

However a SBT will take at least 2 working days - during which you earn no interest on it. You can 'squeeze' the last drops out by transferring only part of the total you want in this way and drawing upto £500 cash per day (fee free) at a bank ATM and then just paying in over the counter!

wizzer55

Thanks for that Milarky, that's what I'll be doing as soon as poss.

wizzer55

I've got £5,000 sitting in Egg Money and want to transfer it all to A & L account. In Egg Money balance transfer to current account it states that I can only transfer 95% of my available credit limit (which is £2,000). What is the best way to transfer all £5,000? Is it by doing 3 smaller transfers amounts? I was told I could transfer all £5,000 in one go, irrespective of the £2,000 credit limit, but I'm not too sure and would appreciate any info.

magentadreamer

You should be able to just transfer the whole lot to your current account or savings account as it's a positive balance. I had no problems transferring more than my total limit.

wizzer55

Thanks a lot for that magentadreamer, I'm off to do just that right now.