Balance transfer - help with my options

mikeg1

I posted this before but did not really get to the point (sorry).

I have the following cards, and one short term option is to do some transfers.

My cards are:

Barclaycard Platinum - £7k - limt £12k - 18.9% apr
Egg - £3k - limt £15k - 19.9% apr
Virgin - £4k - limit £10k - 20.9%apr
MBNA - £7k - limt £7.8k - TBA apr
Lyoyds - £4k - limit £6k - 19.164%

With the above will I be able to move much of the balances, and any advise on best new CARDS I could take at 0%.

I hope to be closer to a solution to raise funds to lose the cards, and realise it is not healthy to get more cards but this is a back up.

I will post an SOA later today.

Thanks in advance.

YorkshireBoy

You have £61K available credit, and are currently using £25K of it.

You're going to need a very 'healthy' salary, and an impeccable credit report/history, to have any hope of obtaining more credit with those numbers.

And if you lose some available credit (from Barclaycard, Egg, Virgin) then your numbers, and hence your credit rating, will look worse still to prospective lenders.

Sorry!

mikeg1

Yes I am using £25k from a total of 50k.

I note your point, that is with so much credit in total it will deter other lenders (that is ones I aproach to only take up 0% transfers). And by paying off cards I will also potentially have issues.

I guess the only way I go from here is to get away from using cards, as such if I transfer balances to cards I have with free credit available it will not mater that it has an effect on my credit future if I plan to ditch cards.

Question - with a view to doing this, will it be as easy as my calculation that I could gain another £25k 0% ? for a period. This would take away some pain while I am considering either DMP or loan to clear the cards.

Thanks

redpete

mikeg1 wrote: »

I guess ... it will not mater that it has an effect on my credit future if I plan to ditch cards.

As long as you don't want other loans, mortgage, car finance...

with a view to doing this, will it be as easy as my calculation that I could gain another £25k 0% ? for a period. This would take away some pain while I am considering either DMP or loan to clear the cards.

It's not obvious what you mean here but your calculations mean nothing, it is the CC company from whom you want a 0% deal whose calculations matter and theirs are very unlikely (even impossible?) to result in you getting £25k.

mikeg1

Redpete - I note your points, and am not doing a good job of explaining myself. I am no being blasee about making my credit rating get worse.

I am realting to the unused credit on the cards I have (£25k), and if it is as simple as using the available credit to move balances from other cards. Will this have detrimental effect to my overall rating ?.

Thx

redpete

The fact that in the past you were granted up to £50k of credit means nothing to a new lender considering your situation in today's climate.

In the past it was relatively easy to get levels of credit limits that were way beyond people's ability to pay (as proved by your situation). This does not happen now.

So...the £25k of 'unused' credit you have now does not mean that you would be able to replace this with £25k from anyone else.

mikeg1

Hi - I am not sure I am being clear (Again...)
I have £25k free credit on CARDS I ALREADY HAVE, as such from the combination I have shown would you think it would
be easy to juggle balances (at 0%) to lose a lot of the interest for a period.
And how detrimental would this be again future credit (I do not have cards in mind but future mortgage and any loans).

Thanks and sorry for not being clear, with pressures around my head is not straight.

redpete

I think I get it now. You are asking if you can BT between your existing cards.

If any of your existing cards offer 0% BTs (do they?) then it is worth doing as long as the fee is less than the interest you would save.

I doubt it would affect your credit rating - you would end up with the same available debt and near enough the same active debt.

[Deleted User]

Does your Barclaycard allow you to do a fee free BT to the card, albeit at your go-to rate (ie 18.9%)? A lot of cards do. Remember you don't have to have a promotional offer to transfer a balance.

In which case you could move your Virgin £4k over and pay a little less interest on that amount. Then either close your Virgin card, or hang onto it for a while to see if they offer a good BT rate, which they sometimes do.

Also - why not reduce the limit on your Egg to something like 4k? If you do that AND close your Virgin card then you'll shave £21k off your available credit, increasing the chance of you getting a new card. Although it's still a biggish number.

mikeg1

Thanks for feedback - will look at those options.