0% Transfer Dilemma

StripeyMiata

I've recently got accepted for a 36 month 0% credit card which is great, but have to use the balance transfer within 60 days.

However, I have around £2500 debt interest free on another card that runs out in January then it reverts to a whopping 28.9% APR.

My dilemma is, do I take a chance and keep the £2500 in place and apply for another Balance Transfer card in January with no 100% certainty I would get one.

Or just move the £2500 now and just take the hit of the transfer fee which would be around £100. At least that way it's ring fenced for another 3 years.

mparter

You could try and reduce the balance on the other card in the 60 days you've got. That way you're transferring less and paying a smaller fee. The fee seems quite high? I transferred just over £4k to a Virgin Money card and was charged just over £40.

StripeyMiata

That might be a good plan, think I could maybe get it down to £2200 in 60 days if I am careful.

The transfer fee is 3.5% so that's around £90? Sorry bad at maths

mparter

3.5% of £2200 is £77

fozmcfc

While you only have 60 days, to transfer a balance now, you have until January to pay as much of the £2500 off.

So what you should do, is think how much could you pay off, if you didn't have the other card. The more you could pay off until January, the less you need to transfer in the next 60 days, so the fee would be lower.

So say you thought you could make 6 more £100 payments towards it, bringing it down to £1900.

Then you would transfer the other £1900 within the next 60 days, thus paying less of a fee.

Looking at the fact you could reduce it by £300 in the next 60 days, would suggest that you could easily pay £600 off the card by January and therefore you should be safe with transferring £1900 now and keeping £600 as the balance on the card which has until January.

StripeyMiata

That is a brilliant idea fozmcfc, and so logical when you see it written down. Thank you very much I'll do that.