Balance Transfer Query

B_Real_2

Hi, I've got the following credit cards / rough balances:

Barclaycard - £1,200
Halifax £3,400
MBNA - £2,400
RBS - £3,500

Total balance £10,500 / total limit £35,600. Debt/limit ratio c. 30%.

Barclaycard is at a reasonable rate. I want to transfer the rest to either

Virgin 36 months 0%, 2.99% fee, or
Tesco 18 Months 0%, 0% fee / or 28 months 1.49% fee.

But I'm not sure if I'm eligible for either - I vaguely recall something about not being allowed two cards who have the same source lender? (Halifax, Virgin & Tesco are all Mastercard, but then again I've got two Visa's up there... ).

Also, if I reduce my limit on a card or two before applying for new card, will that increase the limit I'm given on the new card?

Alexd52

The only way to check eligibility is to apply.

You can balance transfer to any card with a balance transfer offer as long as the two cards are not within the same banking group. As long as this is satisfied, Mastercard to Mastercard and Visa to Visa are ok.

There is no theoretical limit to how many Mastercards or Visas you have, but most banks will limit you to just one, but there are exceptions.

B_Real_2

Ah yeah that's it, it's the same banking group that I was thinking about. Any idea if Barclaycard, Halifax, MBNA or RBS are in the same banking group as Virgin or Tesco?

Shopper_99

Tesco bank used to be part of RBS but since 2009 they are independent. So you shouldn't be restricted from getting a Tesco credit card on the basis that you have an RBS one.

I've not seen a balance transfer card with no fee before, have you got a link to the details for it?

You may find that banks are reluctant to offer you a card as you already have so much available credit. It may be worth reducing the limits on the cards you already have before applying for a new one. Banks look at available credit as risk, so it is best to reduce the limits if you don't need them.

Have you considered talking to your bank about a loan to consolidate the cards rather than taking out another one? You may be able to qualify for a loan with a monthly payment lower than the payments of the cards you are currently paying and it would be a better solution long term.

B_Real_2

Right here on MSE :-)

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/balance-transfer-credit-cards-variant#nofees

Bonkers, but seems legit.

I've considered getting a loan from somewhere like Zopa, best rates just now seem to be around the 4-6% mark. Any loan would no doubt be better than the high interest I'm paying now, but tarting it all onto a new card tops any loan option.

Thanks for the shout on Tesco :-)

MoneyMission2015

I had similar levels as you on cards. I used the 'soft search' tool on here & from that it gave me a list of cards and the probability of being accepted. Halifax came out top & Barclaycard just below that.


I applied for the Halifax first as that was coming up as 90% probability of being accepted. I got accepted with a £3500 limit on that so balance transferred as much as I could.


I then thought I might as well try my luck, so applied for the Barclaycard too. As far as I can remember this came out at about 75% probability of being accepted, I applied and got accepted with an £8500 limit. So now all my debts are on 0%.


Consolidation loans are very rarely the answer to clearing debts and if you can get a 0% interest balance transfer then having an interest bearing loan would be madness anyway.


I don't advise applying for lots of cards but for me I was at a stage where I wasn't going to apply for any credit for a long time anyway, so I thought I might as well risk the 2 searches on my credit file to see if I was successful. If I wasn't successful with the Halifax card, I wouldn't have bothered with the Barclaycard either. If I didn't get them I would have been no worse off because I was paying interest on my debts anyway. Luckily for me it worked out & now I'm not paying interest, so for me it was well worth having the 2 searches on my report. I won't be applying for credit anytime soon anyway


And just an edit to add, Virgin were part of MBNA but are in the process of splitting. In fact this might already be completed. One of my old cards was with Virgin, became part of MBNA group but the card & all my statements etc were still under Virgin Money but now that they have split my account has stayed with MBNA and my card etc now bear the MBNA logo & have no reference to Virgin Money at all.