Stoozing: Make Free Cash from Credit Cards article discussion

JimmyTheWig

Can you guarantee to be clear of the real debt when the existing 0% is finished?
If you cannot be sure of this then I'd say don't start stoozing. It is much more important to think about borrowing money to service real debt than it is to stooz.

If you are not applying for a new card then you won't get a credit search done on your file. But the amount of credit you are using will be on your file so the stooz will still affect you.

JimmyTheWig

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

2. Where's the "97%" you mention from?

I'm keeping 3% back for the first repayment, so only stoozing 97%.
But as you have said this wouldn't be necessary.

... this does not make much difference to the accuracy of the profit figure returned.

Stoozing doesn't have to be as complicated as this!

Agreed and agreed.

I was trying to get an exact answer because (a) I'm a mathematician and that's what we do and (b) it's what the OP asked for.
But I agree there is little real value in getting such a precise answer, when there is a vast difference in time that the money will actually be in savings for.

YorkshireBoy

hopscotch8 wrote: »

Ooops I didn’t mean to cause such a debate

Debate is good! You're guaranteed more than one viewpoint.

If the card is an existing card and you agree to take the card company up on a new offer does this get flagged up on your credit scoring or is it just when you apply for a new credit card that it affects your credit rating?

I've had several 'ad-hoc' searches made by MBNA throughout my relationship with them, some of them coinciding with repeat offers. Their T&C's used to say that these searches were unrecorded, ie they wouldn't be seen by other lenders, but MBNA now say (in a notice of variation I received earlier this year) they will be seen by other lenders.

How many cards can people generally have on the go at one time to carry out stoozing in order to maximise profit?

It depends on the individual limits, and your admin capabilities, but I've had 7-8 on the go at any one time. Others will have had more.

Because I mentioned before that I already currently have debt on an existing 0% credit card, would it be a really bad idea to start the stoozing process now rather than after the other card is paid off?

The biggest problem I'd envisage is being able to secure another card when you really need it, ie when you're about to start paying interest at the end of the 0% period on the 'real debt' card. Any stoozing debt you have could work against you. Stoozing cards can be closed down in readiness, but that should be done 2 months beforehand to make sure your CRA file is updated...and that will eat into profit, especially now that most deals carry some form of BT fee.

It's not worth making 5% AER on your savings if there's a chance you'll incur 15.9% APR on your debt.

Stoozing can be used to supplement your debt management, but shouldn't be your main focus IYSWIM.

Good luck with whatever you do.

valek99

hello all, been trying to find an answer to the following question but no luck. sorry if it is buried in one of the threads but have not spotted it.

want to know if i were to have an SBT card and transfer the balance to my current account the card would then have a negative balance. so if i use a 0% BT card to payoff the SBT card immediately i can then benefit from the long period of 0% interest on the BT card.

my question would be that once i have paid of the SBT card with the 0% BT card, so i am back to 0 balance, could i then request to transfer more money to my current account and start the process again ?

so in short.....

1. with an SBT card, how many transfers to my current account would i be allowed, please specify time limits if applicable

2. how many times can i do a balance transfer between my SBT and 0% BT card, assuming i can do point 1. several times ? are there a number of times or simply up to the limit of the card ?

was hoping to transfer as many times as possible during the "offer" periods of both cards to maximise returns since normally the SBT card limit will not be that big.

thanks

YorkshireBoy

valek99 wrote: »

...<snip>...

Just use Egg Money as your SBT card. It doesn't have it's own 0% offer, but you can route as many transfers as you want from other 0% on BT cards.

The problem with using an SBT card with it's own 0% period (eg, MBNA or Egg Card), is that they also make a charge for the SBT. Invariably, these days, this will mean you pay 2 x 3% fees...making more-or-less all deals unprofitable.

valek99

i was thinking of Abbey Zero as an SBT card as they have no transfer fee for the first month (which i think includes transfers to current account).

assuming this is correct, i was trying to find out how many times i can transfer money from the card to my current account within their month period ?

if i were to do this, i was planning on paying off each debit balance on the abbey card (once i moved the money to my current account) by doing a balance transfer from one of my 0% BT cards (such as Capital One).

this gives me my second problem. assuming Abbey for example let me transfer funds to my current account 3 times within the month period (lets say £2000 a time) i will need to do a balance transfer 3 times from my Capital One card to pay off the Abbey Card and benefit from the 0% 15 months with Capital One.

has anyone done anything similar ? or can you only do one transfer with a set of cards and n more than that ?

YorkshireBoy

valek99 wrote: »

i was thinking of Abbey Zero as an SBT card

Abbey have recently withdrawn SBT capability on this card. It was never really going to be a workable option anyway, since the 30-day clock starts ticking when the account is opened...not when you receive the card and activate it.

http://www.stoozing.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1209198309/127#127 (and subsequent posts)

JimmyTheWig

The answer is to do the transfer from your 0% card to your fee-free SBT card (*) FIRST. This will give you a positive balance on your SBT card.
There is no limit to the positive balance on your SBT card - you are only limited by how much debt you can be in on it - and so you can do this, in one hit, to the maximum of the 0% card.
Then SBT your positive balance (plus more if you have 0% transfers on your SBT card) into your current account.

You can repeat as many times as need-be (as far as I am aware), but there is no need to repeat for the same 0% card, as you did the whole limit from that card in one go.

(*) The only question that remains, then, is which cards offer fee-free SBTs. Egg Money is the only one that I am aware of. (It's possibly only fee-free for positive balances, but as that's what we are transfering, it is fee-free in this case.)

danthemoneysavingman

nykmedia wrote: »

On a slightly different subject:

The AM-EX 5% cashback offer is for an introductory period only, so I threw everything I could at the card for that period only and cleared the balances each month. At the end of the year when the cashback is paid, is it paid in actual cash to your bank account or is it credited to the card?

credited to the card - you can ask for a cheque to be sent to you.

Anji2008

Hello,

I was hoping I could get some advice please. I am completely new to stoozing and have never applied for a credit card. So i'm not sure what credit limit I would recieve - as in I have completely no idea! I am hoping it will not be as low as £5000?? I want to apply for the Virgin 15month deal. I have just graduated from university and am not in employment yet so I'm sure this would bring the limit down right? Can anyone tell me what they suspect my credit limit would be? Because if its quite low it might not be worth bothering with.

Thank you for your help!