Approved for Less Than I Hoped - Do I apply again?

Rosylee

I have just applied for and got the Fluid 0% for 36 months which I am so pleased about, but my credit limit is only £11500 and I wanted to transfer a balance of £12064. Someone said they applied for 2 in one day to cover the debt - should I think of doing something similar...it seems risky to me not only that I might be rejected, but also I don't want to mess up the one I just got in any way. Should I do another eligibility checker or should I wait a few days or weeks? Or should I just pay the left over £564 off over 2 months - I was paying £300 per month any way for the CC I have now. But not sure if I can manage the £300 plus whatever minimum amount the Fluid card is going to charge. Please offer some advice. I would be grateful for a response as I don't always get much response...its beginning to affect my self esteem thinking I am asking rubbish questions LOL. Thank you in advance

TadleyBaggie

You cannot usually transfer the whole credit limit, usually only 95% of it. So the left over bit will be more than £564.

eskbanker

You've just gone from having £12K or more of available credit to over £23.5K, so the prospects of getting even more will depend on the overall state of your finances, especially key ratios like available credit to salary.

Transfer what you can onto the Fluid card and the minimum monthly payment on the residual interest-charging balance will be very small, much less than £300....

Rosylee

eskbanker wrote: »

You've just gone from having £12K or more of available credit to over £23.5K, so the prospects of getting even more will depend on the overall state of your finances, especially key ratios like available credit to salary.

Transfer what you can onto the Fluid card and the minimum monthly payment on the residual interest-charging balance will be very small, much less than £300....

I forgot to mention that the current CC account is actually closed and has been for over a year as I do not wish to accept interest hikes. So I will not be having £23k available credit. I have well and truly learned my lesson I promise

MoneyMission2015

It was me that did the 2 in one day. Limits I got were £8500 & £3500.


If I were you I wouldn't apply again for another one. The only reason I tried a second card was because the first application gave me £3500 which was nowhere near enough to cover my existing £11k of debt.


However if I had been rejected I wouldn't have tried again and I would have just got on with trying to overpay on the interest bearing debt as quickly as possible.


As a rough guide for you, on my card that had £8500 limit the monthly minimum amount on it to begin with was around the £170 mark. So if you're looking at around £11k on one card I'd guess the minimum would be roughly £220-£250 to begin with and would reduce each month. So that would leave you with roughly £50-£80 to pay on the interest bearing card if you can currently afford £300.


Each month the minimum on the Fluid card will go down but just keep your repayments to both cards at £300.


As an example (absolute guess figures, you'll have to check your statements)


Month 1
Fluid Card minimum £220
Interest bearing card pay £80


Month 2
Fluid card minimum £210
Interest bearing card pay £90


Month 3
Fluid card minimum £200
Interest bearing card pay £100


You can see where I'm going with this but obviously check your statements first before you work out how much you can pay.


Also bear in mind that your debt will go up slightly to begin with because of the balance transfer fee. I knew there was a balance transfer fee on mine but I still felt disheartened when I could see my debt had temporarily increased.

Rosylee

Thanks MoneyMission2015 that is very helpful and I am saving that advice.

smithers1981

£11.5k is a generous limit which suggests your rating is good, i would definitely try for another card whats the worst that can happen?

Consumerist

Rosylee wrote: »

. . . But not sure if I can manage the £300 plus whatever minimum amount the Fluid card is going to charge. . .

MBNA cards (Fluid is part of MBNA) normally require a minimum payment of 1% of your balance (there will be no interest charges during the promo period) so if you transfer the maximum amount (probably 95% of £11,500 = £10,925), your minimum monthly payments will start at about £112 (allowing for 3% BT fee) then reduce slightly in each subsequent month.

So you'll be saving about £200 each month to start with and you can use this to pay off the remainder from the old card in just a few months. You should then set your monthly payments to repay the balance over the remainder of the promo period.

Rosylee

Thank you for the responses, much appreciated. It's a relief to know I can finally start making progress on getting rid of the debt.

Consumerist

Just a quick word of warning with MBNA cards: DO NOT use the card for purchases during the 0% promo period.

Rosylee

Consumerist wrote: »

Just a quick word of warning with MBNA cards: DO NOT use the card for purchases during the 0% promo period.

Oh I have learned the hard way not to do that. I can assure you I will not be using it for purchases at all. But thanks for emphasizing this again. I wish I had known that years ago when I was a numpty.