The Best Balance Transfers Article Discussion Area

Moggles_2

Yes. A balance transfer counts as a payment and as long as the amount transfered is greater than the minimum payment due, you do not HAVE to make another payment until the following month.

All the same, it's advisable to make an additional payment anyway.

a) there's no guarantee the transfer will be completed before the date your minimum payment is due.

b) unless you are on a 0% promotion, you will be charged interest on any balance that remains.

Simon_the_saver_2

Has MSE (or anyone else) worked out the AER resulting from the BT fees on current 0% deals? Would be great to compare with loan/savings rates to decide which deals are worthwhile. Think I just lost out by using my Egg annual 0% allowance to pay off some of my flex mortgage. D'Oh!

LaharnaMan

I wonder if anyone else has had this happen to them?

I applied online for the CapitalOne Platinum Card and got the online approval right away. That was early in July

That was at the time they were touting 14 months %0 on balance transfers

A week or so later the agreement came through the post telling me I was trustworthy enough to have a limit of a minimum of 10k but up to 25k (:beer: ) if I transferred a few balances upon application (the balance transfer was only good until September 07 it turned out...how they get 14 months out of that is beyond me since it takes over a month to get the card in your hand).

25k ??? Heart racing, I filled out the balance transfer slip to get rid of a looming 15.9% on 6k worth of debt on 2 other cards. Relief.

2 weeks later the card arrived (in the same mail batch as the PIN number...security, what security?).

It showed a credit limit of £400 and had a letter saying they couldn't transfer the balances. Panic! What now! So I called them and was told my credit score had been that bad.

"But my credit has always been top-notch", I explained. "Sorry, sir but its their (Experian's) information, not ours. Here's the address of our complaints department. Is there anything else I can help you with today" (they do say that don't they).

I hung up and got to work finding out what my credit score was (using Martin's little sign up and dump 'em tip about Experian :money: ). It came back as 999 out of a 1000 (better than 80% of UK consumers :A ) . After getting over the initial shock of seeing that, and enjoying a warm fuzzy feeling for about 10 minutes, I called back telling them what a good boy I'd been. They told me that they had their own internal scoring system (who needs Experian, right?) and it was decided that £400 would be quite enough for the likes of me.

They did admit that Experian had some input into the decision making process but couldn't explain how their scoring system had turned a swan into a duck.

2 weeks to go before MBNA hits me with end-of-balance transfer rates...and...well...is there anybody out there with a spare card I can shift my debts on to for nothing?

All good fun I suppose and its nice to see that the rhyming word you associate with bankers really is sooo appropriate.

Yours,
Livid in Laharna.

Moggles_2

Sorry, I've no recent experience of Capital One.

How many new credit cards have you applied for in the last 12 months?
If the answer is less than 4, it's worth considering one more card.

Last month, I applied for the Post Office card (0% on balance transfers for six months, no balance transfer fee).

I made a telephone application (their website doesn't work with my browser) and was told my credit limit over the phone, so when the resulting paperwork arrived by post, I completed the optional balance transfer request and sent everything back by return.

The whole process, application and balance transfer, was completed in just under 14 days.

Very best
M.

Simon_the_saver_2

Simon_the_saver wrote:

Has MSE (or anyone else) worked out the AER resulting from the BT fees on current 0% deals? Would be great to compare with loan/savings rates to decide which deals are worthwhile. Think I just lost out by using my Egg annual 0% allowance to pay off some of my flex mortgage. D'Oh!

I did the calculation and Egg's 2.5% BT fee for five months comes out at 6.18% APR (includes paying off 2% minimum payment each month) so I was going to lose out. But Egg thought the transfer was suspicous and couldn't contact me to check, so recalled it! :j

I made a spreadsheet if anyone's interested...

ckerrd

Anyone got experience of the Harley Davidson card which appears to be fee free and 0% for 9 months (unless I have got that horibly wrong)

pfpf

ckerrd wrote:

Anyone got experience of the Harley Davidson card which appears to be fee free and 0% for 9 months (unless I have got that horibly wrong)

i applied for one and got it with a ridiculously low limit of 1300.00 its not arrived yet and its been about a week since i sent the signed paperwork back.

not a great limit, but its all going on the stooze pot.

atmcq

In reply to Air-wolf

I have recently applied to Capital One Platinum in response to a targeted offer - 0% BT til Nov 2007. Got my card through yesteday, and no sign of a minimum spend, but the warnings on here concerned me somewhat.

Called them, and they reckon that there is no minimum spend in my case (something to do with my credit rating I think, but the line was bad so it was a hard conversation.) Haven't done a transfer yet - hopefully there will be no last minute 'glitches' like those experienced by LaharnaMan

Did you reply to a targeted offer?

Nytehawk

I think I got this right but I am sure that someone will put me rightif I am not. I went searching for a BT with 0% interest and Sky have got one until June 2007. I admit theres a transfer fee of 2.99% but if its a straight BT from one card to another isn't this a good deal?

ricklecoat

Here's a question: When you pay a BT fee (eg 2%) and it gets added to the card's balance, what sort of debt is it? I mean, is it considered part of the balance transfer and therefore interest free, or is it considered a 'purchase' and thus sits racking up interest — but trapped behind the transferred balance so that you can't pay it off?