Profiting from a Capped BT fee

schiff

I am in a position to BT £4500 for 6 months for a 2% fee, capped at £50.
Unfortunately the BT is made up of balances on 3 different cards.

Is there any way round the fact that each BT will be treated separately (I assume - even if done in the same phone call). From a situation where I could be charged the maximum of £50 (if it was all on one card) I think I might be faced with paying over £80 - a big difference.

Unless anyone has a bright idea? In any event a confirmation that my assumption is correct would at least let me know how I stand.

schiff

YorkshireBoy

I think most stoozers would do one 4.5K BT from Egg Money, and then settle the other cards from the resultant +ve balance - by asking Egg to do a series of BACS transfers (and hopefully gain 1% cashback in the process!).

There are other options (if you have other SBT cards), but most (all?) would involve additional fees.

Milarky

What about just transferring the full amount available to whichever card has the largest available credit limit assuming that card allows you to make fee free ('onward') transfers to the other two cards? (Only one of the three needs to allow fee-free balance transfers and you are there, barring a few days full rate interest until the new card's credit hits this account and clears it or puts in into a positive balance)

schiff

Milarky

If that can be made to work it would excellent. Thank you.

It's going to need some phone calls. I'll let you know how I get on. Didn't even know you could do this and I would certainly never have thought of it.

YB

I've done a fair bit of stoozing but somehow never got into EggMoney. It seems a bit complicated but, now that fee free is getting much less available,
perhaps I should start to get interested!

schiff

schiff

Milarky

My mind is in top gear about this!

Would this work? I owe £1700 on a card where the 0% runs out in Sept.
Could I ask my new card (CL 4500 - 0% for 6 months - 2% fee, capped at £50) to xfer £4000 to my £1700 card - do they check the amount owing, is doing this seriously frowned upon, could it be refused by my £1700 card, etc?

If it works I could withdraw the excess from my £1700 card by BACS and pay off my other two cards by normal payments from my current account.

That would enable me to benefit from the £50 cap and allow me to pay off my other two cards at my leisure and at the best time.

I have a sneaking feeling that there's a weakness in this idea which you may be able to tell me about! When I've done BTs before I have always asked for a rounded up figure to be BT'd eg. if I owe £1265.89, I've asked for £1280 - and there's been no problem.

Thanks for your anticipated help - and anyone else's of course, who has experience of this.

schiff

YorkshireBoy

schiff wrote:

and anyone else's of course, who has experience of this.

I think you'll have to post the £1,700 card's name to draw on actual experiences, since different providers will have a different approach to (large) +ve balances.

For example, Halifax expressly forbid them in their T&C's (condition 7.6). Indeed, they will return excess funds to the originating card account - a complete waste of a BT fee if this happens!!

schiff

Thanks YorkshireBoy.

It's Sainsburys Bank the £1700 card: the others are Marks & Spencer &MORE and the Sky card. If it could be made to work with any one of them, it wouldn't matter which.

The Sky card carries only a few hundred pounds of debt which I pay off in full each month - I threw it in to the equation, as it would benefit me if I managed to get round the capped fee thing.

Phone calls are the obvious route - I'll see if I can talk nice to them (something I find easy)! I'll leave it till tomorrow afternoon to give this thread time to fill up with brilliant ideas.

schiff

YorkshireBoy

schiff wrote:

It's Sainsburys Bank the £1700 card:

There's a (some say loose) tie up between HBoS and Sainsbury's. Indeed, the aforementioned condition 7.6 can also be found in the Sainsbury's T&C's so that rules that out!

You might want to check the other cards' T&C's whilst you're waiting for replies from others with more practical experience.

schiff

YorkshireBoy/Milarky

I think I've sorted it out! As stated, Sainsbury's expressly forbid. I studied the SKY and M&S T&Cs and there's no mention anywhere of how credit balances are dealt with - if at all.

Then I had a light-bulb moment. I seemed to remember being credited with interest once on a credit card, so I ploughed through my 'My Money' records and found it. Only 19p but it followed my clearing a balance on the account, plus a bit (see earlier post). It was on a card out of the Frizzell Bank stable and not available to everyone (the Saga card is one and the Civil Service Motoring Association card is another). The csma card is going to Morgan Stanley in Sept/October.

Looked at the T&Cs and they positively encourage you to use the CC as a current account - couldn't be better I thought. Full discussion with a wonderfully competent girl at Frizzell's. They pay 4.25% gross on credit balances (over £500) and do fee-free BTs out of your pot. They deal with withdrawal requests by cheque or BACS xfer within a few days too. BTs exceeding your credit balance are charged at 3.9% (and I think fee-free).
Isn't it lovely being an over 50 ex-civil servant!!

Thanks both of you for all your help and guidance - without you I probably wouldn't have reached the happy conclusion I appear to have found.

schiff :beer: :beer:

YorkshireBoy

That's a great result schiff! I'm pleased it's worked out for you.