When should I balance transfer

mikeopvc

If I do ask for a credit limit increase will it affect my credit score?

[Deleted User]

mikeopvc wrote: »

If I do ask for a credit limit increase will it affect my credit score?

It may or may not affect your score, but that's neither here nor there. It will affect the way that lenders view you though, which could be positive or negative.

You'll have more credit available to you, which beings you closer to the point when lenders will decline to offer you anymore. So could be negative.

But it can also lower the debt to limits ratio, which is positive.

Unless you use the whole lot, which is another negative. And so on...

mikeopvc

I ended up transferring £2100 online, it told me the max I could BT so I didn't need to ring them.

I now have another letter from virgin saying they are increasing my limit from £6000 to £11000 at the end of this month, This would enable me to BT nearly all of the remaining balance from the halifax card onto the virgin card all at 0%

Trouble is I could use the extra 5k as a temporary cash flow solution but that would mean more debt at a high interest rate, I read on another thread that some cards allow a transfer into a current account and you get the same rate as the BT rate which would be 0% on the virgin card.

Does anyone know if I could do this with the virgin card?

Thanks

tonkinator

When you say you could do with the temporary £5K cash flow, what would you have done if they hadn't just increased your limit by £5K?

Try to think of anything you can cut back on first.

If you still need it, you'll obviously want the cheapest way. If the card allows "super balance transfers" or "money transfer" (transfer to a current account) you can do this, but what Virgin card is it you have?

It looks like the credit card that they're currently offering to new customers, the "Virgin Balance Transfer Card" does allow this. Worth a call to them to see if you can. It says this has a 4% handling fee though, so it's not totally free.

[Deleted User]

As it's an MBNA card, you can, but only if they have offered it to you. Check with them, either online or on the phone. The transfer fee is normally a little higher than a standard BT.

Alternatively, you do your spending on the Halifax card and then BT to the Virgin card,

mikeopvc

tonkinator wrote: »

When you say you could do with the temporary £5K cash flow, what would you have done if they hadn't just increased your limit by £5K?QUOTE]

I would have had to use my halifax card for purchases at a higher rate but was just wondering if there was a way of using the extra 5k for purchases at a rate of 0%