Positive balance

mary

I have an old Green Egg card (2004) anniversary in May. Haven't yet sent them a secure message re the new conditions, but was lying low, for the following reason:

Last week walked into my local Lloyds and asked for a Platinum Visa card, with a credit limit of £15K. All done and dusted in 5 minutes. Had one last year, no problem. Model customer. Excellent track record. Thought it was time to try again. Card arrived today, in addition to a separate letter asking me to ring as some of the information was apparently missing from the initial application.

The problem apparently was that I asked to transfer the full amount and they would only let me transfer the £14,900. Not a problem I said. Then the guy asked me what is the actual balance on your Egg Card. So I had to come clean and said in fact the balance is £0. In that case, said the guy, I can't do a BT unless you have an actual debt on either a credit card or a store card. Okay, I said, I'll come clean. This is the situation. I want to do a BT to my Egg Card, because this is one of the few cards which will allow you to transfer a balance into your current account, perfectly legitimately. I've done it, shall we say, a few times before. From there it will be transferred to our Mortgage Reserve Account with Woolwich, where we do have a real debt. I asked him, if in view of his inability to do a BT to my Egg Card, whether he could do it to the Woolwich directly. Apparently not, because it is neither a credit card, nor a store card. In that case, said I, then I'm a bit stuck. At which point, he said, I'll just put you on hold if that's okay. Fine, I said. In about two minutes he came back and said, I've just checked and it will be okay for me to go ahead with the BT to Egg. So the £14,900 is on its way. Jokingly said, I guess you were looking at the wrong page of the rule book at that time!

Next hurdle to get it from Egg to Lloyds without any fees for a positive balance, hopefully, then I'll see about the Anniversary scenario later.

Milarky

Transferring a postive balance (possibly in chunks due to the '95 percent' restrictions on the Egg website) should not give rise to a fee. You say your anniversary month is May - so that could be caught by the change (if it applies to existing customers) from that date. The 'worst' thing that can happen is that Egg puts a 'special promotion' on your card in the month of April just to spike your guns and allow them to charge a fee - even against a postive balance. 'Good' news is that is unlikely (to offer you an overlapping 5 months at 1.9 or 3.9 with your own anniversary) and would be capped in April to £50*


[*whoops 'per transfer' - that would cause some difficulties were an SP in effect! Fingers crossed but you can always ask for a 'standard rate' transfer I suppose - no fees on that now or after May]

mary

Yesterday was the 30th when the guy at Lloyds actually sanctioned the BT. I'm hoping that it doesn't reach Egg until April 1st (in fairness he did say it will take 6-10 working days, but often they just say that to cover themselves and it comes through quicker). I have just checked my emails from Egg and I do have this Spring one which says I have a special offer for the month of March (phew!) :

"Do it before 31 March 2006 and you'll get a fabulous balance transfer rate of 3.9% pa fixed until 1 August 2006." with a max fee of £50.

So technically, my BT will arrive through in April and there shouldn't be a fe