Paying off 0% cards...

billymadbiker

Hi,
I have a barclay card, offers me 0% on balance transfers for 12mths and 0% on purchases for 6mths.

Say I did the following:
Balance transfer £6000 today
Make a £6000 purchase today
Make repayments to the card at £1000 p/m (including the minium payment)

I have read the terms and conditions on the account which say payments will be made against the most expensive debt first.

Now, my question, As of tomorrow, both lots of £6000 would be costing the same p/m, ie. nothing.

How can I be sure that the payments I make will be taken from the 'purchase', so, after 6mths this is paid off and attracts no intrest?

I am just a bit worried that they could put the money into clearing the b/t so in 6mths time they start charging me intrest on the remaining £6k.

The t&c's don't really help and on the phone I struggled to understand a word of it.

Wold it be safer to put the money aside and then repay a £6k lump after the 6mths are up? At this stage that would obviously be the most expensive debt so that would clear it but I would then have to pay the intrest on that £6k.
Confused?

kdenty

I had a similar question and got no replies I'm afraid.

I had barclaycard offer me 0% for 6 months then another 0% for 4 months. When I pay some off I'm curious as to which is paid off and when the 0% deal then runs out on the rest!

fozmcfc

It may depend if it says in the T&C if 2 promotional offers at the same rate are used at the same time, whether it is the offer ending soonest that payments go to first.

billymadbiker

It does not really say anything about it in the barclaycard t&c's.
Can't get any sense out of them over the phone either!

Also, I have just looked at the t&c's for Lloyds credit cards.

They offer 0% for 6mths for balance transfers.
It says 'we will charge a 3% fee for transfers and charge intrest on this fee'

Fair enough, but it then goes on to say that the 0% balance would be paid off first, then purchases (It does not mention the fee again at this point but looks like that would be paid off last?)

I thought the law had changed so the most expensive debt had to be paid off first?

If I transfered £10k onto a Lloyds card at 0% I would be paying my 'normal' apr on £300.

Now, If I could repay the £10k before the 6mths was up then that £300 would (should) be gone within the first payment so no more intrest.
If they kept charging me intrest daily until I had repayed £10,300 that could knock it up a bit more than I was expecting?

Not sure how they would get away with this with the law as it stands today?
Maybe that law does not apply to 'promotional' intrest rates?
So, Your 'normal' rate would be 16.9%apr. They let you have £Xk at a 'promotional' rate of 0%.
The fee then gets put on a 16.8%apr.
The 'fee' rate is then cheeper than your 'normal' rate so the 'higher' one gets paid first even though it's currently at 0%

ironlady2022

My aa credit card sent me a letter stating it will pay off the first promotional rate that runs out. I would just give them a quick call!

mancitychick

mayling03 wrote: »

My aa credit card sent me a letter stating it will pay off the first promotional rate that runs out. I would just give them a quick call!

Quick and call cannot be used in the same sentence when talking about barclaycard. Also getting any sense out of there overseas call centre operatives is nigh on impossible.

ironlady2022

Well I don't have dealings with Barclays but if you have had a bad experience, it doesn't represent the rest of them.

lvm

I agree with what you said about Barclaycard call centre - it took me 5 phonecalls just to get my online banking reset!

I'm not sure at all about your question but if you only paid the minimum payment and saved £1000 each month into an ISA for 6 months you'd get about £70 in interest so probably better doing that anyway...

IWantToBeFree_2

I have a Barclaycard - there are 3 different types of promotional balances on there

Football spend - 0% for life
0% Balance transfer - ending in May 2011
0% Balance transfer - ending in October 2011

I can clearly see my payments coming off the balance transfer balance which ends in May 2011 on my online statements as every month it gives the amount for each one - so where the rates are the same they go on the one that expires first.

billymadbiker

Thanks,
Thats good to know.
At the moment I only have the one transaction, a balance transfer at 0% for 16mth.
I wanted to use the 0% at 3mth for purchases but only if the payments I make in the next 3 mths will actually go toward paying all the purchase off before I get charged intrest.