Superbalance Transfers??

Whangarei

Is this a recent thing?

Last year I took a 0% Virgin credit card to pay off my £1,500 overdraft.

Balance transfer sorted, so just owed Virgin the balance.

I brought a holiday (and spending money) to New Zealand using the initial overdraft I cleared therefore defeating the purpose of clearing it in the first place. Let's put this down to me being young and stupid. So now I owed £1,500 with Virgin plus my Barclays overdarft. Great.

I have now managed to totally clear my Virgin card 5 months early:j, which was not easy, (just to mention I had around 3 late payments in total).

So my main question is which is the best option for me in clearing my overdraft? I saw on the site Martin mentioned a 'superbalance transfer' where the card will only let you transfer to a bank account. Is this a new thing with card companies?

The virgin card I got last year allowed me to transfer to my bank account at the same average 2-3% rate that would be for a credit card to credit card transfer rather than the 4% which they are offering now?? The only two cards allowing 'superbalance transfers' are Virgin and MBNA Platinum.

My main problem is:

a) Will I be allowed to get the credit card with MBNA bearing in mind I paid them off 5 months early (which card companies dont really like)? Virgin being the same family as MBNA and is a card which I currently have so cannot get again.

b) My other option would be to get a Barclaycard - but my debt is with Barclays in terms of an overdraft. Can I/should I get a credit card with a company I have a debt with?

c) What other option do I have in paying this overdraft off and getting rid of it once and for all?

*No more long haul trips for me for a long while!:p*

Tixy

SBTs are not a recent thing, its what you did last time on your virgin card. Many lenders have now increased the rate of the transfer fee though.

List of cards offering SBTs http://www.stoozing.com/sbt.php
You might get another MBNA card but probably not with a 0% offer whilst you still have the virgin one. Have you contacted virgin to see if they have any new offers available on your existing card? They may give another 0% offer once your statement has been clear a couple of months, always worth trying that first.

No problem with having a credit card and current account with the same company if you are able to keep up with all repayments.

Other options, just ensure your overdrawn balance reduces each month (this option does involve willpower in not spending all your wages each month), you could go online every couple of months or so to reduce your overdraft limit down by a few hunderd so you cannot re-spend it.

Some people prefer to treat the overdraft as a seperate debt, so this would involve you opening a new bank account and moving your whole current account elsewhere and then setting up a standing order from new account to old account to gradually repay the debt. This isn't the cheapest way in terms of interest that you will pay but some people still seem to prefer in terms of helping ensure they actually repay the debt rather than keep reusing the overdraft.