Am I cutting this fine

sjh101

My current 0% on purchases card ends in early Jan next year. I have applied for a new 0% balance transfer card which has been accepted and have now sent back the signed declaration/contract so just awaiting the card.

My plan is to transfer the balance from this current card onto new one but how long can I leave it before I do this?

Obviously it's christmas, so don't want to leave it right up until last minute. If I got the new card say by the 15th and transferred balance around 20th would it go through onto new card by 4th Jan? Could I leave it later?

HOW LONG DO CARDS TAKE TO ARRIVE ONCE THE SIGNED CONTRACT HAS BEEN SENT BACK?

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO DO A BALANCE TRANSFER FROM ONE CARD TO ANOTHER?

Thanks

pinnit2014

I think most will say it takes 5-10 days to transfer the balance if done online...but it will depend on the card issuer. My experience is that it's typically 5-7 working days.

As for when the cards to arrive...this may be a few weeks. You may get your logon details sooner and then you can do it online.

Id imagine if you requested the BT by the 20th then that'd give time to clear, given the bank holidays - just remember to keep an eye of for any direct debit that you may have on your account.

1DayAAT

When I've had a BT from one credit card to another it has always completed in about 3 working days. But that could just be down to the luck of my providers (Natwest ---> Barclaycard)

Paully232000

From my experience i think you will be fine, I have never had to wait two weeks for the balance to disappear from one card and appear on another. Even taking into consideration Christmas, you should be fine from about the 20th to the 4th Jan.

[Deleted User]

My experience is that balance transfers only take 1 working day.

zerog

Balance transfers are usually done by faster payments. If you do it over the phone then there are occasions when they can be done immediately, e.g. Halifax/BOS can do them in 3 minutes. Doing BTs online usually queues them up for processing the next day.