Balance Transfers being denied - Good credit pre-covid, bad credit now!?

Digfast

I am concerned that paying high interest on balance transfer is now unavoidable with the goalposts seemingly being moved by credit card suppliers.
I had good credit 2 years ago and pre-covid, however for some reason I have struggled to find a credit cart supplier offering balance transfers.
I have successfully applied for a Fluid card but this currently only offers only £600 credit and wont make a dent in £3000 on the existing card
Perhaps this can be increased but the card only offers a 0% rate (3% transfer fee for 6 months) Then we go round again
My current supplier Sainsburys bank did allow me a 1 month extension for which Im grateful however, what with the way thingsk are I can only see matters getting worse with regards lending and income.
We need the government to step in and prevent these high rates of interest being forced upon us
I am going to pay my debt off as quickly as possible... a matter of months...
I am well aware there are people in larger debt than myself and this is in no way going to be possible
Anyone else experienced these sudden changes in credit availability?

dr_adidas01

Digfast said:

I am concerned that paying high interest on balance transfer is now unavoidable with the goalposts seemingly being moved by credit card suppliers.
I had good credit 2 years ago and pre-covid, however for some reason I have struggled to find a credit cart supplier offering balance transfers.
I have successfully applied for a Fluid card but this currently only offers only £600 credit and wont make a dent in £3000 on the existing card
Perhaps this can be increased but the card only offers a 0% rate (3% transfer fee for 6 months) Then we go round again
My current supplier Sainsburys bank did allow me a 1 month extension for which Im grateful however, what with the way thingsk are I can only see matters getting worse with regards lending and income.
We need the government to step in and prevent these high rates of interest being forced upon us
I am going to pay my debt off as quickly as possible... a matter of months...
I am well aware there are people in larger debt than myself and this is in no way going to be possible
Anyone else experienced these sudden changes in credit availability?

Before asking this you should have searched the forum as there a lots and lots of posts about credit providers being more strict with lending due to the current economic uncertainty due to the pandemic, also the UK is currently in recession so of course credit will be a little more harder to get for most people.

Sandtree

Lots of people are... haven't you seen the daily news about another company laying off X,000 people? Is that the environment you want to be lending money to people in?

Belts are being tightened and promotional offers all but withdrawn so time to go to the plan B of what you were going to do at the end of the 0%

Time2Go_25

I'm not sure it would be a good financial plan to get the government to intervene to force credits card providers to offer low interest rates to people who probably can't afford it. I hope out of the current mess people will start to live more within their limits, maybe even save to buy things, but in anyway to put aside money for the rainy days. Credit will get harder to get, interest rates will be higher and credit limits lower. If there is one thing I'd like to see it would be the phasing out of all 0% transfer deals, it just encourages people to borrow and many get into financial difficulty as a result.

FinanceFerret

Big changes in availability, can argue it's Covid, or FCA rule changes, or both, but the number of 0% deals is dropping.  That's not just fewer deals, but harder to get anything if you're not exactly what the credit card companies are looking for.  Take anything you can get at 0% if you're looking like hitting much higher rates, then pay those higher rates down as fast as you can cos there are no guarantees that 0% will be available for some time. 

cymruchris

Focus on paying down your debt rather than how to get more 0 percent finance. As much as there have been offers around for a while from various providers - 0 percent deals aren't meant to last forever to keep a long term debt. If you want to get the debt paid more quickly - are there things you can do to reduce your monthly outgoings? I usually say the same thing - but are you on a top internet package, or a fancy tv package, or a high monthly mobile package - is there anything you can downgrade for a year to help clear your debts? It may be that you're already on the best value options - but no harm to ask.

sourcrates

Most folk find that the balance transfer offers eventually dry up, especially so now due to recent events, the piper will require payment eventually, if you find your struggling, why not pop over to debt free wannabe and post your SOA.

MinuteNoodles

This is why it's a good idea to set direct debits to clear the cards at the end of the 0% offer, not just make the minimum and hope and pray you'll get another balance transfer because it's far from guaranteed.