RBS/NatWest credit card

savirr

The moneysaving email today, and the best balance transfer page, gives the current best buy as the RBS/NatWest 16 month balance transfer cards. I've looked at the webpage and in the "Benefits" section it says

Please note that if you take advantage of the 0% balance transfer offer and the 0% purchase offer, your monthly payments will be used to pay off your balance transfer first. The balance transfer fee will attract interest at the same rate applied to purchases from the date charged until paid off.

I take this to mean that if I did take this card out I'd be paying interest on the fee even though I wouldn't be paying interest on the transfer, and there's no way around it because their payments hierarchy would stop me repaying the fee before the transfer?

Isn't that a bit sneaky? Or am I just reading it wrong?

System

Hi

Looking at the payment hierarchy in the summary box for the NatWest Platinum card, it is as follows:

Allocation of
Payments

[FONT=Arial,Arial][FONT=Arial,Arial]

If you do not pay off your balance in full, payments we receive will be applied in the following order:

1. Interest on special offers
2. Other interest, any fee and charges
3. Special offers
4. Purchases and balance transfers
5. Cash advances and money transfers

See section 2(D)(c) of your Credit Card Agreement for full details. [/FONT][/FONT]

So the fee comes higher in the hierarchy that the BT and can therefore be cleared in the first payment with no interest to pay.

Regards
UNDERGROUND

savirr

Ah! I was looking at the RBS card.

System

savirr wrote: »

Ah! I was looking at the RBS card.

It's exactly the same summary box as NatWest.

RBS wrote:

Allocation of
Payments
[FONT=Arial,Arial][FONT=Arial,Arial]If you do not pay off your balance in full, payments we receive will be applied in the following order: [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial,Arial]1. Interest on special offers [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Arial]2. Other interest, any fee and charges [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Arial]3. Special offers [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Arial]4. Purchases and balance transfers [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Arial]5. Cash advances and money transfers [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial,Arial]See section 2(D)(c) of your Credit Card Agreement for full details. [/FONT][/FONT]

savirr

Oh well. I was just confused by the text in the "benefits" section. It doesn't matter much; I've applied for a Barclaycard instead. It's almost as good a balance transfer deal anyway.

Thanks for the help!

System

What they are saying is that if you do a balance transfer and spend on the card the balance transfer will be cleared first and the purchases left 'behind it'.

Good luck with the Barclaycard

UNDERGROUND

savirr

Oooooh! Yes, I did completely mis-read it. I basically read it as though the "and the 0% purchase offer" bit wasn't there. Thanks again - that would have really bugged me :-)

BillytheFish_2

By the way, with this card how linked are RBS and NatWest?

I've got a NatWest card (that I haven't used for ages and have just sent a letter to NatWest to close it). Does that mean that I am less likely to get accepted by RBS?

How long after the closure of the NatWest should I wait before I apply for the RBS?

Curt.

How linked are they? They are pretty much one and the same now other than trading as seperate entites.

You can both cards but you can't transfer from one to the other on BT deals, as they are both part of the RBS group.

izools

Curt. wrote: »

How linked are they? They are pretty much one and the same now other than trading as seperate entites.

You can both cards but you can't transfer from one to the other on BT deals, as they are both part of the RBS group.

Yes exactly. Everything from Natwest is an RBS product with RBS scribbled out and Natwest written on in crayon. Literally.

Poosmate

I applied for this earlier today and got knocked back. No reason given but they use Experian for their searches so am checking my file, when I get it.

I don't understand why I got knocked back, I believe my credit rating should be pretty good as I don't miss payments or make late payments, I'm on the electoral role and have been for the 15 years since I moved here. I'm a home owner and have worked all my life. I also earn 8k more than the minimum requirement of £10k.

The only thing I can think is that I put that I'd got 3 credit cards (2 of which have balances of less than £1300 combined - 1 with a low credit limit and the other with a £2.7k limit, so almost £2k available). I ticked the box for doing the balance transfer.

I spoke with an advisor online and he reckons I'll be sent a letter in the post regarding the decline.

It would be interesting to see how many people are actually accepted or if it's just a sales gimmick!

Poo