Credit Transfer confusion :-(

SuperHan

The credit limit you are offered on your BT card will depend on how much the lender (CapitalOne) is willing to lend you based on your credit history.

As you are applying for subprime cards (Aqua/CapitalOne), I assume you don't have a great credit rating.

You already have £800 of debt. CapitalOne only believe that you can afford an additional £500 of debt (they have no guarantee that you will transfer the debt, or that you won't run up another £800 once you have transferred it) and so it is possible they are not willing to offer you the full £800 as they don't think you could service £1,600 of total debt.

It's also possible that they think you not being able to pay a (relatively) low debt of £788 off is a negative point - but we'll never really know what goes into the algorithms that decide credit limits.

The subprime lenders wil tend to offer lower limits generally too, simply as a function of them offering debt to "higher risk" lenders.

Generally, you would want to do a balance transfer for the full amount - and in a lot of cases you would be offered sufficient limits to do that - but it's by no means a guarantee and depends on your personal circumstances.

The best thing to do would be to transfer as much as possible to the CapitalOne card, make the monthly minimum payments on this and pay use spare income you have to pay off the Aqua card. Once the Aqua balance is repaid, then focus on clearing down the CapitalOne card faster (and ideally before the 0% period ends).

Lightattheend

Thanks SH, that's my intention - things have settled down now after my move so I will be able to pay off more. I want to get the credit card(s) paid off so I can then start saving again.

Lightattheend

Just a little update.

I got my new CapitalOne card today, which also happened to be the day I checked my bank account to find a huge refund payment from the Tax Credits office!! After checking the refund was legitimate, I have used some of it to pay off a large lump sum of the Aqua card and then transferred the small remainder to my new 0% CapitalOne card. :j:j:j:j:j:j:j