Balance transfer between two credit cards - question?

Dobbibill

ellives wrote: »

I have written to cap one to do just as you suggest Dobbibill.

A quick phone call should do the job

ellives

Well both, I took chattychappy's advice and just applied successfully for Barclaycard Platinum 0% interest on balance transfers for 37 months from account opening. 3.5% transfer fee applied, reduced to 2.55% by a refund. They included the BT in the application and offered a credit of £18k!

A question to you experts - should I close the mnba card once balance cleared, or the cap one card (already cleared)? After all, even if I do, I will still have an amex, either the mnba card or cap one and now a barclaycard.

Perhaps I should close the cap one as mbna card always seems to have promo rates and cap one never? Credit limits are similar.

As mentioned, your guidance has been much appreciated and it has literally saved me money and time.

chattychappy

Sounds like a result! One slight warning. Barclaycard do, very occasionally, approve applications and then change their minds later....

Personally I would keep the cards open but dormant - you never know what offers you might get. New customer offers are usually better, but if your circumstances change you might not have access to new credit cards. I would only close them if there is a risk you will go crazy on them. Others do prefer closing them down believing that too much available credit might reduce your credit rating in the eyes of future lenders (I think this is overplayed). If you do keep them open, you will have to keep an eye on them in case of fraudulent transactions.

rolls99

Sorry to butt in here.... Question. (can't get my head around this!)


Scenario:


CC1: Balance £3k, Limit say £6k. Balance bears interest.
CC1 offers your 6 months interest free BT from OTHER cards.


CC2: Balance Nil, Limit £2k
CC2 Offers 12 months interest free BT.


Could you then in theory, transfer £2k from CC1 to CC2, THEN transfer it BACK
to CC1 (for six months interest free), THEN transfer your remaining £1k from CC1 to CC2?


Or am I way off?

chattychappy

rolls99 wrote: »

Or am I way off?

Not really, but it's unlike you would get a BT deal that is both 0% interest and 0% fee. The OP's 0% fee with 4.9% interest is pretty good. Fees of 3% or more are usual when it's 0% interest.

rolls99 wrote: »

CC2 Offers 12 months interest free BT.
...
THEN transfer it BACK to CC1 (for six months interest free), THEN transfer your remaining £1k from CC1 to CC2?

A hitch is that a BT deal is typically open for only a short period. Eg if it's 1st January, they might say "0% for 12 months on BTs carried out by 28th February".

rolls99

chattychappy wrote: »

Not really, but it's unlike you would get a BT deal that is both 0% interest and 0% fee. The OP's 0% fee with 4.9% interest is pretty good. Fees of 3% or more are usual when it's 0% interest.

That's true. I dunno where my brain was earlier (possibly thinking about the "interest" on the cap one)

chattychappy wrote: »

A hitch is that a BT deal is typically open for only a short period. Eg if it's 1st January, they might say "0% for 12 months on BTs carried out by 28th February".

Something (along with the fees each way) I didn't think of and it does kind of limit possibilities. I have to admit however, while obviously I suppose CCs would be well happy for someone to "round robin" a balance between two or three cards (and get a fee instead of no interest), the OPs original plan which I failed to grasp is one which has never occurred to me: transferring to an interest bearing card (but only for a short time), sort of counter intuitive but obviously not in reality even if you pay a month's interest better that and shift back to where it came from if they have an offer!

Voyager2002

ellives wrote: »

I have a virgin mbna card with an attractive balance transfer offer and another cap one card with no such offer.

However, the cap one card has no spend on it, the other card has.

Could I transfer the balance to cap ones from mbna and then use the attractive transfer rate to transfer it swiftly back to the mbna card?

I'm wondering if mbna will realise that it is recycled money rather than new money?

Hope you follow my drift!

Have you tried the obvious: ring up Virgin and ask if they can help? Perhaps explain what you plan to do and ask if they could offer you something that would remove the need for two transfers.

[Deleted User]

ellives wrote: »

Perhaps I should close the cap one as mbna card always seems to have promo rates and cap one never?

Also MBNA has the money transfer facility which I don't think Capital One has. Btw well done on your high credit limits - I didn't know Capital One went as high as £21k! :T