Capital One or 2.9% for life and how best to manage rest?

Hopeful2

I have £25000 outstanding on my barclaycard which is charging 2.9% for life. At present I am only paying the mimimum.

I have received a Capital one leaflet that has 0% until June 07. Would I be better transferring my barclaycard even though it has a 2% handling fee? I would hope to pay this by the June 07.

I also have £18,000 on my Abbey CC which will end on 1 September and only have £6000 in savings for it to be paid off. I was going to transfer to my egg but again I note that they are going to charge for the 0% when my annual time comes around. I transferred my Virgin credit to the Abbey for a higher amount on the 0%. I then cancelled my Virgin in December 05.

I have Money Egg and Egg Card with nothing on as I was waiting for annual 0% which is not until later this year.

I have Morgan and Stanley with only purchases and pay it off when it arrives.

I have Mint which again I pay off when it arrives no 0% left.

Any advise would be welcome as although I have been good at moving to 0% I feel as I have used all my options.

I was also going to put £3000 of the £6000 into an ISA but now fear that may not be the best solution due to the money I am owing.

magentadreamer

Could you repay the remainder of the £25K you have on the 2.9 LOB Barclaycard in the period up to June 07? If not then you'd end up doing the card shuffle again.2.9% is a pretty good rate to lose if perhaps you couldn't get another card with a big limit. I'd suggest you perhaps tried to BT a smaller sum plus your £18K on your Abbey Card. You could sit on the £6K you have in savings till 0% periods are up by doing as you said putting £3K in an Isa and the other £3k in a high rate account.

Hopeful2

Oops messed up. I have £2,500 on barclaycard. I have had the 2.9 lob for about a year or even two now. Is it better to have a 2.9% on the £2,500 and put in the £3,000 in an ISA or get rid of the debt?

grumbler

Hopeful2 wrote:

... Is it better to have a 2.9% on the £2,500 and put in the £3,000 in an ISA or get rid of the debt?

ISA is better, but only while you don't pay any interest on your other debts (or the interest rate you pay is lower than the ISA rate).

Hopeful2

I have opened a A& L ISA so if a credit card charges under 5% does that mean that it is better to keep money in an ISA and pay the interest on a credit card? I apologise if this is a very obviously question but trying to get my head around it all.

grumbler

Yes, this is very obvious: you get more interest from ISA than you pay to your CC. However, if CC interest is close to 5% the difference is very small. On £3000 amount your annual profit is just £3 per every 0.1% difference in interest rates. With 5% and 5.2% rates profit is £6 p.a.

Milarky

red_ratty_rat wrote:

Sorry me again,

Do you remember how you got your LOB rate of 2.9% with Barclaycard - the standard offer is 6.9%??

I have been with Barclaycard for 6 years and have never been offered that rate :mad: - did you ask for it against another card offer?? :T :T

That offer was available during 2004 for existing customers to phone up for. There was a 2% handling fee as well and you were limited to transferring upto 90% or £5000 whatever was lowest. Since then the 'best' offer made seems to have been 5.9 LOB with no fee. (Also no longer available)

Hopeful2

Thanks Milarky as I could not remember how it came about.