Balance Transfer - FAIL

onlyfoolsandparking

pursuitofmoney wrote: »

I got given the limit when I made my application.

Thinking back at it I may know what caused it to fail.
Max I could transfer was 95% of my limit
I transferred the max I could from the two cards to Halifax.
I presume when the first card balance transfer went through and the fee got charged.
the original amount I set up for the 2nd balance transfer would have taken me over the limit of 95% which caused it to fail.

Yeah that would do it, some cards only go up to 90% limit too so that's something to be aware of in the future.

Baahnz

Did anyone from Lloyd's get a successful transfer recently? Had the same today.. thanks

pursuitofmoney

Hi, I successfully balance trasnfered from Lloyds to Halifax.

Baahnz

Thank you very much for the quick response fingers crossed it will all go through when the card arrives!

MABLE

We managed to get a swap with Lloyds and a credit limit of £13,000. We needed to finance our new car and needed £10,000 to make up the shortfall.
So we transferred from our MBNA card £10,000 at 3.9 percent to our bank account and the next day did a transfer for the same amount from Lloyds to pay off MBNA. We ended up paying about £1.00 in interest charges and now have £10,000 cash at zero percent for 10 months.

kpstone123

MABLE wrote: »

We managed to get a swap with Lloyds and a credit limit of £13,000. We needed to finance our new car and needed £10,000 to make up the shortfall.
So we transferred from our MBNA card £10,000 at 3.9 percent to our bank account and the next day did a transfer for the same amount from Lloyds to pay off MBNA. We ended up paying about £1.00 in interest charges and now have £10,000 cash at zero percent for 10 months.

Be careful with this method, especially if you're already stretched. It's very easy to think "I'll just get another balance transfer card"...until your card application is declined for one reason or another.

Then your next move would be a loan, except you can't get one due to your high credit card balance (loan debt is more favourable than credit card debt when making applications for credit). Or at best you have to take an offer with higher interest.

Nowadays it's hard to get balance transfers for less than a 3% fee. So every 9 months getting a balance transfer on 10k for 3 years is around £1200 in fees.

Personally I wouldn't go for any balance transfer offer less than 18 months, which gives plenty of time to regroup/have an exit strategy.

Ben8282

It is not unknown for balance transfers requested at the time of application to somehow 'fail' and not go through.
When tried again after the card is received they go through fine.
Don't know why.
Try the balance transfer again now that you have your card and see what happens. Obviously double check card number, amount etc in case.