Panicking: accidentally used wrong card

jonesMUFCforever

redux wrote: »

There might even be some people who deliberately do regular modest spending on a balance transfer card, preserving the benefit of more of the transfer for longer.

Can you please explain what you mean by this as I can't see any benefits myself?
Firstly you get no interest free period when you spend on any card with an existing balance (other than with an interest free purchase card) and therefore start paying interest straight away.
Secondly a balance transfer is for x number of months, regardless of any other transactions on the account.

I might be missing something - I'm sure you can put me right.

redux

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

Can you please explain what you mean by this as I can't see any benefits myself?
Firstly you get no interest free period when you spend on any card with an existing balance (other than with an interest free purchase card) and therefore start paying interest straight away.
Secondly a balance transfer is for x number of months, regardless of any other transactions on the account.

I might be missing something - I'm sure you can put me right.

For a 0% balance transfer with no spending, by the end of the offer the balance will have been reduced by all the monthly repayments.

If instead there is modest monthly spending of about the same as the minimum payment, and if interest on those minimised with repayments the day after the statement instead of waiting until the due date, the full balance transfer is borrowed for the full period, at a cost of a few pence a month (just the interest on that new spend).

It's not for everyone, especially not people who may have trouble recycling at the end with a new offer, but it can be useful for some.

crowdedhouse

Thank you for the replies. So, going by the replies, currently it is not showing on my online account (as it takes a while to process). I will not pay it yet. Last statement was issued 24th December 2018 with a payment due by 18th January 2019. Therefore, I wait until 24th January to pay it off and it only gets charged interest from purchase (4/1/19) to 24th January.

jimmo

Rather depends on who your credit card is with. I have 3 cards. 2 of them tell me online the date of my next statement but they don't actually appear online for a day or two. If I were you I would pay the day after the statement day just to be sure.
The other, MBNA, never predicts the next statement date. Its pretty regular, around the 15th but can turn out to be 2 or 3 days later. In that case I would wait until the statement is actually produced before paying.