Making Money using Plastic

peedy-wessex · 1 October 2004 at 1:09PM

I'm on my "third round" (i.e. every six months I have to clear the 0% transfer balances). I have, on average, 6 cards at a time with approx £5K on each. I have a "true" debt of about £8K. It doesn't really matter cos I ain't paying any interest on it. And, in any case, the debt is reducing by virtue of my monthly payments.

I have invested £25K in Premium Bonds and have had £500 this year so far. My son has a First Direct card with £26K limit and he has this on deposit with ING (5%) and is making £100 a month after tax. How he got such a high limit was partly by doing what I do, but he got MBNA to consolidate all his other cards. Then he used that info to get First Direct to give him £26K.

We love screwing the banks. They are so stupid. BUT and this is the trouble. We are both finding that we are getting turned down more and more and we are ending up getting "affinity Cards" with lower limits.

Still, we have had a good run and made hundreds of pounds!!

alexei_2 · 1 October 2004 at 3:18PM

They're so stupid that their profits are tens of millions each year!!!!!

For everyone making money from banks I would suggest that there are 10 who are losing! They are not bothered about the few who are playing the system for a relatively small gain.

cafenervosa_2 · 4 October 2004 at 3:56AM

True they are not stupid. Its a matter of percentages, 2% of customers might make money from the CC company, 98% of customers will make the company money.

Reaper · 4 October 2004 at 1:50PM

You would do better to head over to the Credit Card forum. There you will find many people doing the same as you and lots of useful tips. For example did you know that if your son swaps from one type of First Direct credit card to another (eg Black to Gold) then apparently he can get another 6 months interest free? That should help him to keep going a little longer.