Unoffical Existing Customer Balance Transfers

MoneyWorries_2

Spent last weekend calling the CC companies to see what they would all offer - hopefully this will be helpful to someone.

The best I got offered was from my Natwest Mastercard- they offered 0% for 6 months on a BT - there was a 2% fee - but this was capped to a max £49. So I took them up on that one. He also reduced my APR for purchases to 7.9% for 12 months - it had been 18.9%, so I was pleased with this - but I know not to even think about using that until the BT is paid off! I read a couple of people above had got no offers from Natwest - I wasn't expecting to get one - it only came about when I spoke to someone in the closure dept. - who knew I was seriously upset about how I had been spoken to by the first person I spoke to when I called!

HSBC offered hubby a BT rate of 3.9% for six months - but that was with a 2% fee (not capped) - so no way on that one.

M&S offered a BT rate of 5.9% for six months with no fee.

Even though they have no balances on them, neither HSBC or M&S would lower their APRs - so they are unlikely to be used at all - might try them again in a month or two.

I already had a 6.9% BT rate (LOB - no fee) with Barclaycard - but I asked them about lowering my Purchase Annual Rate - which they lowered from 19.9% to 11.9% - this is permanent. I was pleased with that, but of course I do know better than to use it, because it will be a long while until the BT is paid off!

I will get DH to call Egg over the weekend as I have read here that people have had offers, and had the APRs reduced - I would like that changed at least, from the too high 16.9% they are at present - I guess they might bite and offer something with the cards having 0 balances on at present.

Sorry this post got a little long - hopefully it might encourage someone to give Natwest another go anyway!

mrbigd

Just phoned Sky Card to cancel my account and although not available immediately was advised that they would be very soon be mailing out 3/6/12 months 0% offers.

No further details available but the Customer Service Rep said it was happening real soon.

thegoodman

The_Boss wrote:

May I ask - what are the circumstances behind this? How long have you had the card and did you do anything special to get it?

I have also taken this offer. I have been with MBNA for 2 years now. I telephoned them inreference to BT.

barrdani

I have just taken an MBNA platinum plus card with 0% for 12 month on the balance transfer and 3 month 0% on the purchases. i asked if there was any fee for transferring to my current account and the guy at the call centre confidently said there was most definately not. However, i purchased a newpc and decided to transfer the amount into my current account and then use that to pay of the purchase so i could have 12 months interest free in stead of 3. I have now been charged a 3% handling fee when i was told that i wouldnot be. MBNA wont budge on this.

Any ideas
I refuse to pay the fee when i was told i wouldnt have too.
After arguing for a while i was tld i shouldnt have signed the agreement, WHICH I DID NOT SIGN AT ALL.:mad:

I dont understand how companies can get away with this.

Please help

Dan

Moggles_2

Hi barrdani

Welcome to MSE & the credit card board!

This is not really an *unofficial existing customer balance transfer* question.
You may get replies more quickly, if you post on the main credit card board.

Cheers
M

Xbert

Virgin/MBNA have just given me 0% balance transfer on £11k until April '07 for a £75 fee. I phoned to close the card on which I've had zero balance since I paid off the inital 0% BT and voila the offer was made. I had made a handful of quite big purchases, several £k each, on the card between clearing the first 0% BT and now - so maybe they (mistakenly!) think I'm worth retaining as a customer. I have to say I can't fault the card other than their irritating habit of sending me credit card cheques, but then they all do that.

I think it works out as ~£300 interest saved off my mortgage even after I've paid the £75 fee.

JollyNolly

I think this one may have been mentioned by other posters - I rang LTSB to close my Classic Reserve card (interest rate 21%) and was offered a choice of 0% for 6 months or 1.9% for 12 months for being "a valued customer", apparently.

leannie_2

Hi,
I have a Co-Op Affinity Credit Card, which I am trying to pay off. It has £3250on it, but I have no credit facility on the account, the interest rate was 13.5% which I have just been informed is going to rise to 18.9%!
I called them to complain about the the raise in rates, and asked if I could swap to another Co-Op product or could my APR be lowered?
They said that they were unable to do either, they did not do BTs for existing customers.
Has anyone else had an existing customer transfer with them?

happyformonths

Hi all,

I've read through this thread but can't find an exact fit for my circumstances.

I got a Virgin CC in Sept/Oct 2005 for the 9 months 0% on Balance Transfers deal. Before the end of the 0% period I transferred out most of the £5000 balance (leaving about £150). Anyway, I rang to try and pay this off and close the account at the end of the period, and they offered me another 6 months' 0% to transfer back the rest of the £5000 (with a capped fee of £35). I bit their hand off , but this 2nd period of 0% will end on 27 December, so I'm planning for what to do after that.

Sadly I haven't managed to actually reduce the balance significantly because I have more expensive debts elsewhere which I've been dealing with. However, I do have somewhere to transfer out the balance so I can reduce it to £0 before December. It's just that I'll be paying 10.9% on it while it's there

Does anyone have a clue what my chances are of a further 0% period? Failing that, I've heard of people getting v. low temporary interest (e.g. 0.9%) offers or low LOB offers after a repeat 0%. What do you think? Have they gone off the boil with these? Should I ring at the beginning of Dec and ask to close it again, or simply ask what they can do for me?

Thanks for any feedback.

HFM

FTD

I have recently taken a loan of £7500 at 6.2% (I pay just over £177 a month over 48 months and owe about £7220).

Egg have just offered me a life of balance transfer at 5.9% WITH NO FEE :-)

Trouble is, I don't know what to do, whether to shift the loan to the egg card or something else?
I've checked and I can make additional payments penalty free to the loan, so I can pay off the bulk of the loan, and a month later pay it off with a last payment of £177, avoiding something like £70 in early settlement charges!

Would I be better doing this, I'm not sure if the savings would be that great, I think it's less than £150 over the term, or should I make a super BT, stick the cash in a savings account and drip feed something like the A&L 12% regular saver?

Any thoughts appreciated.

FTD