Barclaycard - be careful of the rate!

RickMave

Following the excellent advice on this web site I have just set up a new Barclaycard account. When I applied online the deal was quoted as 5.9% on the life of the balance, with no fee. I was happy with that.

I got my Barclaycard yesterday, and phoned up and enabled it immediately. Then this morning I phoned up to transfer the balance from another card - and was quoted (on the telephone) 6.9% on the life of balance - that's 1% higher than I thought I was going to be paying (6.9% is the rate for existing card holders).

I queried this and said that I signed up for 5.9%. Initially she wasn't having any of that and had to go away and check whether I had a special offer, then came back and said okay. So I'm a happy bunny. However if I hadn't caught this I'd be paying above what I should have been - so take note you closet balance transferrers!

There are some things which might be useful for others who might be considering applying for a Barclaycard:

1) When you phone up to enable your new Barclaycard they cannot do the balance transfer there and then - you have to do that via a totally separate number afterwards (and in my case they didn't offer any help at all - no offer to transfer me to the right department, nor could they give me the number I needed - I was just told to use the number printed on the back of the card). No big deal, but this was slightly disjointed customer service IMHO.

2) As above, make absolutely sure that the rate you are given is what you signed up for. From my experience it seems to me that they might try and bump the percentage up when you attempt to use balance transfer. Maybe I was just unlucky, and I did get the rate I expected when I queried it.

3) You can only do balance transfers via telephone. No on-line facility is provided.

4) You can only use so much of your credit limit for balance transfers. Barclaycard put a top limit on the amount you can balance transfer. So on a £7.000 credit limit you might be limited to £5,000 balance transfer (these numbers are purely indicative - your deal might be different). This was not made obvious from the signing up process, so if you were applying for a new Barclaycard and concerned about the limits you might just find there's a plastic ceiling put onto the overall credit card limit you get with Barclaycard.

5) There is a top limit on the amount of cash you can withdraw on the card. Again, this wasn't made obvious to me at the time I signed up (but in my case wasn't important - I've never taken cash against a credit card anyway).

6) The Barclaycard web site seemed very slightly confusing because there are so many different cards to choose from. I have a platinum card, and there were 2 different deals involving platinum - a 0% balance transfer deal for 14 months (with a transfer fee IIRC), or no fee and life of balance interest rate.

7) My general suggestion to others is to print off the screens you make your application thru, so that you have something to refer back to later.

Overall, in the last 3 months I have been actively engaged in setting up 3 new credit cards, and closing another. First off - and entirely the fault of that rascal Martin Lewis - I transferred to Alliance and Leicester, after being a customer of HSBC for over 30 years (the term "quids in" applies here so that rascal Martin is now owed a pint by me....and probably a couple of black eyes from HSBC.....). So I got a new card from A&L. Second, I applied for a Marks and Spencers card which was straightforward. Thirdly, I applied for the Barclaycard. Then after transferring balances between the cards I closed my Lloyds TSB card.

My general game plan now is that the M&S and Barclaycards will be used to pay off the balances I have transferred - and never used as regular credit cards. The A&L card will be used for regular shopping/petrol/etc and paid off in full every month. Meanwhile for the next 12 months I'm getting a healthy 6.5% interest on money kept in my A&L account, so although I'm paying off balances at 5.9% on the cards I'm actually 0.6% interest better off.

In the process of applying for credit cards (of which I am now a world expert) the Barclaycard arrangement seemed slightly less easy to deal with than the other credit card applications. Not seriously so and it wouldn't cause me not to recommend them, but the experience of doing a balance transfer could be improved upon IMHO. If there is one thing Barclaycard could do better it would be to provide a means for dealing with the balance transfer requests online - it would probably be cheaper for them as well, as they wouldn't then have to employ someone to ask various security questions. However no serious disappointment overall.

Rick

CLAPTON

if you're a tax payer and the A&L a/c isn't an ISA remember you are having 20% tax deducted.

YorkshireBoy

RickMave wrote: »

...you might be limited to £5,000 balance transfer (these numbers are purely indicative - your deal might be different). This was not made obvious from the signing up process,

On the card's main features page, and just below the summary box link, is a hyperlink entitled "balance transfer terms and conditions".

Condition 1 states...

1. We reserve the right to refuse a balance transfer or to limit the amount that can be transferred, in any case the minimum is £250 and the maximum will be £5,000 or 90% of your credit limit, whichever is lower, subject to the available credit limit on your account. Should we honour amounts in excess of your balance transfer limit they will be debited to your account and charged at 6.9% interest p.a., until paid in full, with no handling fee.

This cap is also stated in the summary box, and the terms and conditions, so it pays to read everything before applying.