Cut Price Plastic Loan - MoneySavingExpert.com discussion

brianmiller

Hi,

This sounds interesting, but what I do not want to do is create a bad credit score for myself. I need a 10,000 loan to pay off an existing 8,000 loan and then buy a car. Reading this article it seems I can get this M&S Life of Balance card, transfer the 10,000 to another card that won't charge me to transfer a credit to my bank account (VirginMoney for example, one of my existing credit cards) and then pay off the loan from my bank account.

But, how do I know if I am likely to be able to transfer 10,000 from the M&S card before applying for it? If I then get it and it does not allow me 10,000 pound credit the card will then appear on my credit rating and potentially look even worse if I then need to get a normal personal loan. I already have three credit cards, (all paid off, no bad credit details on my reports for any of them). Should I look to close some of those cards and accounts before applying for yet another, or will that look bad on credit scoring?

Hope to hear from someone soon on this please?

Brian

hannahsmum_2

Does anybody know, or can anybody think of, a flaw to this plan / fantasy:Given a good/excellent credit history, stooze a couple of 0% credit card balance transfers = 8K and shove it in the offset mortgage account until interest is due (10 months-ish).At the same time, using Martin's suggested methods to gain lower interest rate borrowing, (rate for life cards, etc.), apply for any loan with an interest rate of less than 6.7% (=my offset mortgage rate), and stick all I can get via these methods, also into the offset mortgage accounts.Then set up DDs out of the same accounts to pay it back in amounts which are optimal to me i.e. what the lenders specify as a minimum but which gives them nothing additional to the agreed interest rate.Will I effectively have the flexibility of offsetting but at a lower rate, i.e. whatever rate I can borrow at? Or have I overlooked something vital? My guess is that the biggest problem will be my applications footprint which will limit the funds I can get my hands on - correct? Also, I need to watch out for penalty charges on repayments, don't I? Anything else?

SScaff

Hi MSE,

I'm quite interested in the method outlined in the article using the Egg Money card as an intermediary between a Life of Balance card and my bank account to acquire a loan. I do have debt in Canada but none in this country - do you know whether that will affect my acquiring an Egg Money card and/or a Life of Balance card in the UK?