Balance Transfer deal - but don't have a balance to transfer!

susfloos

My card is offereing 0% on balance transfers for 6 months, but unfortunately i don't have a balance on any other card to transfer, but have a 4K balance on the existing card. Would they be on to me if i used my overdraft facility from a bank account from another provider to pay off a chunk of my card today, then in a couple of days time use the balance transfer facility to take it back to the card??
Cheeky i know!
S

NYGiants

I'm not sure you'll be able to transfer a balance from an overdraft to get the 0% deal.

One way around this is to transfer the £4k to a different card and transfer it back (if you have another card available), but as it's only for 6 months I doubt it would be worth it after all the transfer fees; you'd need to sit down and work it all out. I did something similar but that was to take advantage of a 6.9% LOB offer.

susfloos

It did mention overdrafts in the small print and that's how i managed to clear my overdraft before. I'm just worried they'll be on to me!

thenudeone

Transfers to an overdraft or bank account are termed "money transfers" or "cash transfers" and usually excluded from Balance Transfer Offers (or charged at a higher fee) but if your offer specifically includes them, you'll be fine.

£4k is quite a high overdraft limit and might ring alarm bells with the bank if you suddenly used it all at once. The alternative is to use a card with no balance transfer fee but these are quite rare (eg: Barclaycard Simplicity, or Santander Zero in first 3 months)