Barclaycard Balance Transfer Offer - Query

glynnwebb

Hi all,
I'm hoping you can lend me the benefit of your collective wisdom to help with a question I have about balance transfer offers, specifically with Barclaycard.

I have a Barclaycard Platinum with approx. £2100 balance. I also have a HSBC Mastercard with zero balance and a £1200 limit.

I've just had a letter through from Barclaycard offering me 0% interest on balance transfers for 12 months, for a 3.9% fee.

What I want to know is this; can I use my HSBC card to pay off my Barclaycard and then transfer the balance back to my Barclaycard to reduce the interest?
Obviously since my HSBC limit is less than my Barclaycard balance I can't clear it in one go, so if I can use my HSBC card to pay off say half my Barclaycard balance (approx. £1050) and then transfer that back to my Barclaycard, can I then repeat the process to convert the remaining balance to 0% interest?

I hope this makes sense and that someone can help! Thanks in advance,

Glynn

Candyapple

Yes you can do this, but you'd need to make sure your HSBC card has balance transfer facilities and also don't forget to factor in the balanxe transfer fees which will be x4 (x2 HSBC and x2 Barclaycard).

pompeyred

You probably can do this but you'll need to work out the correct amount of fees to see if it is worth it in the long run. I can't see why you'd pay 4 balance transfer fees but maybe I am missing something (cycling it multiple times I guess could be the suggestion to get the max balance at minimum interest).

Both cards are likely to only offer transfer values up to a maximum percentage, this is normally 90%.

So as a rough guide you'd be able to transfer £960 from Barclaycard to HSBC. This would incur a 3.3% balance transfer fee of £31.68.

At some point in the future you would then be able to transfer the full amount of £991.68 back to barclaycard with a fee of £38.68.

To move the intiial balance of £960 would now be valued at £1030.35 which would be payable over 12 months at 0%.

You could then keep moving the balances between cards giving you a higher card balance but at 0% for 12 months.

There is probably a stipulation somewhere that all transfers must be done within a certain time frame and Barclaycard will probably remove it temporarily when you have initiated the first one.

The questions are - can you clear the new balance in the 12 month interest free period.... and what your current Barclaycard interest rate is....?

Have you spoken to HSBC, they also offer interest free transfer offers and it might mean you can move it across one way only and achieve the same effect.