Advice Please

Best_Intentions

Hello All,

I would be grateful if you could give me some advice about some credit cards that I have applied for.

I should have done better research before applying for them but it's too late now.

I applied for 5 credit cards in order to take advantage of the 0% rates. My plan was to transfer the balance into my current account and use it to pay off 10% of my mortgage (the maximum overpayment that I am allowed) and put the rest into savings.

Stupidly, I didn't realise that these cards don't allow you to transfer money into a bank account.

What do people recommend that I do? I have quite a decent amount of potential funds at low interest now and I was wondering what people think is the best way to access this.

Thank you in advance for your help and if I haven't made anything clear, do ask and I'll clear it up.

iAMaLONDONER

Best_Intentions wrote: »

Hello All,

I would be grateful if you could give me some advice about some credit cards that I have applied for.

I should have done better research before applying for them but it's too late now.

I applied for 5 credit cards in order to take advantage of the 0% rates. My plan was to transfer the balance into my current account and use it to pay off 10% of my mortgage (the maximum overpayment that I am allowed) and put the rest into savings.

Stupidly, I didn't realise that these cards don't allow you to transfer money into a bank account.

What do people recommend that I do? I have quite a decent amount of potential funds at low interest now and I was wondering what people think is the best way to access this.

Thank you in advance for your help and if I haven't made anything clear, do ask and I'll clear it up.

Did you get all 5 cards?!

You should have tried an MBNA or fluid card

eskbanker

Best_Intentions wrote: »

I have quite a decent amount of potential funds at low interest now

But it's only available for purchases, rather than savings or mortgage payments. All you can really do is to put all your routine spending onto these cards and just make minimum payments (plus £1) while saving the money you'd otherwise have been spending. When the 0% periods run out, pay the balances off from the savings.

If you have far higher limits than you need, consider closing some of the cards down and at some stage applying for cards that allow super balance transfers in order to go ahead with your original plan.

grumbler

Best_Intentions wrote: »

What do people recommend that I do? I have quite a decent amount of potential funds at low interest now and I was wondering what people think is the best way to access this.

The only way is to withdraw cash and then transfer the balance, but the cash advance fee added to the BT fee most likely will negate any possibility of making profit by overpaying mortgage or getting interest on savings.

Best_Intentions

Hi All, thank you for your replies. Yes, I got all 5 cards - Virgin, Halifax, Lloyds, Post Office and BoS, I think. As suggested, if the only way to transfer money on to them involves a hefty fee on top of the BT then it probably doesn't make sense to keep them open. I should have realised that it wasn't that simple. In my naivety I thought 'brilliant - I can borrow lots of money at 3% for 20 - 30 months'.

iAMaLONDONER

Best_Intentions wrote: »

Hi All, thank you for your replies. Yes, I got all 5 cards - Virgin, Halifax, Lloyds, Post Office and BoS, I think. As suggested, if the only way to transfer money on to them involves a hefty fee on top of the BT then it probably doesn't make sense to keep them open. I should have realised that it wasn't that simple. In my naivety I thought 'brilliant - I can borrow lots of money at 3% for 20 - 30 months'.

You should have posted here before you applied for so many cards in a short period!

Best_Intentions

iAMaLONDONER wrote: »

You should have posted here before you applied for so many cards in a short period!

Although undoubtedly true, your comment does rather ignore my second line...

Best_Intentions

However, I can understand that I have been daft so I should really expect people to tell me so!

jonesMUFCforever

Had your plan worked - how would you have paid them back in 20-30 months?

Best_Intentions

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

Had your plan worked - how would you have paid them back in 20-30 months?

Plan was that that the necessary minimum payments would have taken down the amount owed by quite a lot. I would make up the additional amount by being more frugal for a couple of years. I thought that the fear of having to pay them off in time would be a useful spur to cut out unnecessary spending.

jonesMUFCforever

If it was me I would be doing it the other way round - saving like mad and once a year perhaps putting something towards an overpayment on the mortgage - that way I would not pay any fees.