Advice please on last stage of my Master Plan!

Katy_M_2

Hi All

Thanks for taking the time to read this and apologies if it gets lengthy but want I want it to be fully comprehensive so I can get the best advice.

I am looking at transferring the balance of my (evil) HSBC Loan onto a credit card so that I can manage the payments better - ie; I want to overpay when I can afford to, rather than being stuck with fixed payments (also I will save a bit on interest)

I do not currently have a credit card with a high enough limit to enable me to do this.
The loan settlement figure will be approx £4500, add an estimated 3% balance transfer fee gives £4635 needed.

I am looking at doing all of this just after December 2009 as I have been slowly doing things to improve my credit score since June 09. (have moved house so got myself on electoroll roll, made no new credit applications, got a Capital One credit card with which I pay the full balance off every month, no late payments, CCJs etc)

So by my reckoning - my credit rating after Dec 09 will be average to good.......

I currently have a credit card with a limit of £2300 with Barclaycard. They originally offered me £2600 but I reduced it straight away. I have had this for 6 months any by Dec 2009 there will still be a balance of about £1900 on this.

Now what my query is (will get there in the end soz )

Do I apply for a Virgin Card (for example) and hope that they offer me a limit of approx £5k so that I can transfer the loan balance onto it.

OR

Do I talk to Barclaycard (who seem to like me as I bank with Barclays, have contents insurance with Barclays and also had another credit card with a few years ago) and see if they will increase my limit to the required amount and give me a 0% deal on the balance transfer of the loan.

The only issue with this is that the current balance on the Barclaycard is accrueing a small amount of interest from some mistake purchases I made...the rest of the balance is another transfer which will start accrueing interest in June 2010 - so really I need to transfer this to a new card with 0% deal.

I'm not sure what the best approach is and don't want to go applying for credit and getting turned down and having to wait another 6 months.

Sorry this is a long one but it's what I've been working towards for the last god knows how long and I don't want to mess it up!!

Any comments appreciated :beer:
Katy xx

PS
I have posted this on the credit card board aswell as the DFW

Katy