Advice on balance transfer

t0mbop

Hello,

My wife has a credit card with approximately £6000 on, most of which is from our wedding a year ago. We don't use it for purchases, other than that, in fact it was specifically taken out to take up some of the overspend from the wedding.

The interest free period has just run out and we'd like to shift the balance to another card. She did the eligibility checker on the MSE site and went for the 95% approval rate Virgin card with the longest balance transfer rate, applied and got accepted. During the application it asked for a balance transfer, which we put in, including the current card number. The acceptance screen came straight after saying she'd been approved for £4000, which is a bit pointless really. She telephoned them straight away and the lady said that's all they can offer, so we cancelled the application as otherwise we'll end up with bits in multiple places.

She's going to our bank (who the card is with) tomorrow to ask if we can move to another of their products, although I suspect the possibility of that is unlikely given they'll be losing out on interest.

Does anyone have any other bright ideas as I don't want to go applying everywhere and it seems one of the best chances according to the eligibility checker was insufficient?

In case it helps, she has an excellent credit score, is married and we're homeowners with no other debt.

Cheers

Caz3121

It may be how Virgin assess the affordability (debt to income ratio)
Whilst the intent is to pay the other card off, they cannot guarantee someone would not spend on it again, so it seems they have assessed that £10k (existing 8 + 4 offered) is the right amount based on her salary and credit history
Other lenders may look at this the same way and there is no way to find out what the limit offered will be until you have gone through the application process

[Deleted User]

If you get offered something else, take it rather than cancelling. The searches will start to impact your likelihood for acceptance, and saving some interest is a lot better than saving none.

barvid

> "otherwise we'll end up with bits in multiple places."

As long as it's at 0%, what does this matter?