Using money transfers to pay off existing balances

rockstarnorth

Ok, I know this is not necessarily 'money-saving', but I'm enquiring to see if it's legally and technically possible.

Say I have just one credit card, with a balance of £1000 on it, on an interest-free basis - and that promotional rate is due to terminate next month. The total limit of the card is £4,000

The card also has a promotional offer of a money transfer into a bank account with an interest-free period of say, 18 months with a 3.5% fee.

Can I request a money transfer on this offer into my bank account, which would then incur a £35 fee, bringing the total on the card to £2035 - then use the £1000 in my bank account to then pay off the £1000 original balance?

In short, is it technically and legally possible to use this method to effectively extend the interest-free period on a card (at a cost, though, of course)?

[Deleted User]

Yes, it's fine.

PRAISETHESUN

This is money saving in the sense that you are avoiding interest on an otherwise expensive CC debt! As long as you are acting within the card's T&Cs then this is perfectly acceptable and legal to do.

In my opinion though, it'd be worth double-checking the terms of the MT offer - it just seems a little too good to be true to me that the MT offer is 18 months from whenever you decide to use it, rather than 18 months from when the card was first issued.

BakingC

It could well be a new offer on their card.

Barclaycard often do this (or mine does anyway) I have had my card for 4+ years, it started as 0% on purchases for around 30 months but every month it was giving me additional balance transfers / money transfer offers often in the range of 0% interest for 18 months for a fee (mine ranged between 1.5-3% depending on how they were feeling that month).

Alexd52

Having periodic offers on existing cards is normal, Barclaycard being one of the more prolific, I get them every month as do many others for example. I also get them from Virgin, Halifax and TSB quite regularly.