Help regarding T&Cs on balance transfer offer

Melcatfish

Hi,


I am hoping someone can help me with this. I have a Hilton Honors Platinum visa which recently was taken over by Barclaycard. I also have a British Airways premium Amex card.


Barclaycard sent me an offer where I could transfer a balance from another card to the Hilton card at 0% for a year. This looks like an option I would be interested in. The handling fee is 2.99% and as I do not want another card at this time I can transfer £2000 for a fee of just under £60.


On reading the T&Cs though I see this paragraph...


Until you repay your transferred balance in full you will incur interest on all your purchases at your standard purchase rate of 18.9%. This applies even if you repay your monthly spend in full each month.


The bold is the bit I don't understand! If for arguments sake I had a balance transferred of £2k and I spent £100 that month. Does the clause above mean that they will charge me £18.90 on that £100 even if I pay it off on or before the statement date? If so that's ludicrous!! Surely the balance transfer is not 0% if you then pay interest on anything else which you would otherwise not be paying (I always zero my balance by paying in full before the due date)


Thank you in advance for any help,
Mel
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grumbler

Melcatfish wrote: »

The bold is the bit I don't understand! If for arguments sake I had a balance transferred of £2k and I spent £100 that month. Does the clause above mean that they will charge me £18.90 on that £100 even if I pay it off on or before the statement date?

£18.90 is yearly interest on £100. They will charge the interest for the actual number of days between the purchase and paying £100 off.

If so that's ludicrous!!

Nope.

Surely the balance transfer is not 0% if you then pay interest on anything else which you would otherwise not be paying (I always zero my balance by paying in full before the due date)

Why?
Balance transfer is 0%.
Purchases are not. The interest on purchases get waived only if you pay the balance in full, that you don't do in this case.

Unless you get 0% on both BT and purchases, don't spend on BT card. Spend on your BA Amex one and pay the balance in full or transfer it to Barclaycard.

See "Don't spend on cheap balance transfer cards" part in MSE article

• Balance Transfer Credit Cards

Melcatfish

I guess my logic was that I still was paying my spend balance off as well as the Balance transfer - in the example above if I paid £250 off I had hoped that as it was complete payment of my spend plus some of the balance then it wouldn't incur interest. Thanks for the link, will go and read the article now.


Mel
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grumbler

Melcatfish wrote: »

I guess my logic was that I still was paying my spend balance off as well as the Balance transfer

To get the interest on purchases waived you have to pay the full balance, not just 'spend balance' and a part of the remaining balance.

Melcatfish

Got it, thanks


As I use the Hilton card only as a back up where I can't use my Amex I may still go for this and follow your advice of not using it for spending until the balance is paid off in full.


Mel
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