Use the 0% purchase deal to do a balance transfer

hillendale

I have a Sainsbury's credit card with a 0% deal on purchases until March 08 & wanted to ask if i could some how use this for balance transfers as the normal balance transfer deal on this card is 5.9% , would it be possible to some how do a transfer to my current account and hove the transaction treated as a purchase this way i would receive the 0% rate . I do have an egg mule card if this could be used .
All advice appreciated

Milarky

You can't actually borrow at 0% but can transfer spending items to a low life of balance rate and then put the card away

Details here

• 5.94% p.a. for life of balances transferred in the first 6 months. Any balances transferred after the first 6 months will be charged at either 15.94% p.a. variable, 18.95% p.a. variable or 20.95% p.a. variable, depending on your personal circumstances
• No annual fee or balance transfer fee

Your best bet is to run up a revolving balance for most the first six months - which will be interest free. Repay the Sainsburys card from your Egg card (make sure Egg will not charge a fee by transferring at their 'standard' rate of interest) and then just re borrow as much as you want by Balance transferring at 5.9% back to the Egg card. Any Egg card positive balance produced can be removed by spending on the Egg or a BT to your current account (allow a few quid for the interest Egg will charge you for the time you borrow from them)

hillendale

Thanks for the reply , i understand that the 0% is for purchases but wanted to find a way round it to use this rate for a balance transfer or supper balance transfer . :beer:

Milarky

It can't be done by conventional means. There are a few ways of getting 'cash' from a credit card which are treated as 'purchases' (and this works with cashback cards and the traditional interest-free period also) but there's no general way. Some posters use gambling sites but credit cards are getting wise to this (they must have got very 'popular' for a while) and may specify certain types of transaction as 'cash' (i.e. not interest-free purchases) Always check the Terms and Conditions specific to your card for exclusions

PayPal gets mentioned too but they probably charge an excess percentage fee. With 10 months this might be worthwhile but I am not familiar with PayPal

I've used PayPoint myself to take advantage of 0% purchases and cashback with a credit union payment card - but that only worked because
1) I had a savings account with a CU anyway
2) They offered this method of payment
3) The PayPoint merchant (and you can 'shop around' here) did not distinguish between 'groceries' and 'paypoint' and thus accepted all methods of payment

In other words it was a bespoke route for 'purchases' and it unlikely you could go out an get this set up where you live

hillendale

Would it be possible to purchase travellers cheques or euro's etc may this could be a route to go down or would this be treated as a cash transaction by Sainsburys do you think?

hillendale

or may be made be route it via a paypal account if possible you would only incurr the paypal fee of 3.4%