Can I overpay a balance transfer?

markyh

Hi, I needed to take out a loan for 2 years of around £4000 so decided to use the Barclaycard offer of 0% on balance transfers for 21 months to make it cheaper. (I wouldn't have been able to use a card to pay for the purchase, otherwise a 0% on spending would have been much easier!)

I have around £2000 on an American Express card & £500 on a Capital One card. I have the money in my account to pay these off (or will do when it's due) so instead of doing that I will balance transfer these to the barclaycard, leaving me with the money in my current account to use.

I was hoping to be able to pay £3500 on the American Express card though (leaving me with a positive balance) and then I'd be able to use that in my normal spending, leaving me with the extra £1500 in my account.

Is this allowed? I asked the person I activated my barclaycard with and he said I couldn't. How would Barclaycard know though? Surely it would be down to Amex and whether or not they allow overpayments?

Any help appreciated.

Loubell83

Hmmm not sure about this. I was told by my credit card company that it was against the terms and conditions of my card agreement to have it in credit.

However another card company were perfectly ok with this, I didnt overpay by the amount you are talking, just an extra £100. It was a mistake but they said I could just use the extra credit.

I have never had an AMEX card, maybe give them a call.

thenudeone

It's against the terms of credit cards to deliberately overpay and put it in a credit balance.

two reasons:
anti-money laundering
CC companies often don't have a licence for deposit-taking which is required to cover issues like FSCS protection.

the clue is in the name: CREDIT card

A small credit balance probably wouldn't cause a problem; these can easily happen if you pay off a bill in full but a retailer refund has happened in the meantime; but a credit of thousands may ring alarm bells and get the account frozen.