Transferring Overdraft Balance to 0% Credit card

oliviaka

I have just come to the end of the interest-free overdraft I had as part of my graduate account with Santander. I had been saving to pay off the £2000 overdraft I had with them however unfortunately lost my job due to coronavirus and am now working in a bar on at least 10K less than I was earning before. With this in mind, I am only able to pay off £1000 now but don't want to pay the expensive monthly fees to Santander when I could be paying monthly to get rid of the debt. 
I am unsure whether I am able to transfer an overdraft to a credit card if I can what is this called? So that I can look out for this on the features of cards I am considering. 
I have never had a credit card before so am confused by a lot of the language used to describe them etc, from what I can gather if I apply for a credit card and don't get it this will impact my credit score? Is there anything I can do to boost my credit score beforehand? How do I know how likely I will be to get one. 
If anyone has any advice on this or suggestions of better ways to avoid the monthly interest costs I would love to hear more. A complete novice at all of this so any advice would be amazing!

MallyGirl

You would be looking for a card with a 0% money transfer offer - not a balance transfer. There will be a fee of 3% or 4% of the amount transferred but this is a one off fee, not every year.
If you have not had much credit you may not qualify for one of these - they are less common than 0% on purchases or balance transfers (which are only to transfer balance from one credit card to another).
The alternative would be a loan which will probably have less interest than the OD fees you are paying now.
There is an eligibility checker on here which would give an indication of likelihood of acceptance but it is not always 100% right.

PRAISETHESUN

You need a money transfer card to do this - the card pays cash into your bank account (which you use to pay off your OD) and the amount is then owing on the CC. Make sure you use an eligibility checker first to see what you are eligible for. Your existing debt might limit your affordability but getting even just a portion of the debt at 0% will give you some breathing room. See here: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/money-transfers/

Don't worry about your credit history - a single hard search in isolation won't affect things too bad, and besides... having an expensive interest bearing debt is going to hurt way more.

oliviaka

Thank you both, I have looked at the eligibility checker and it doesn't look like I will be eligible to get a 0% transfer account. l also tried the eligibility checker on the website of the MSE top-recommended transfer card which came up with the same result. 
Looks like a loan might be my only option, do you have any advice where the best place to get a £1000 loan would be/ anything to look out for?

onlyfoolsandparking

A £1000 loan will not be at a competitive rate, better rates are available for loans around 3k (12% approx) or a 5k loan (4% approx) what I mean by saying this and many on here will probably disagree with me as it's not the MSE way is you COULD?? (if you can get approved of course) borrow 5k at a decent rate, pay off your OD, sort out your finances then overpay on the loan with whatever you have left saving even more interest, it's doable but not everybody would consider doing it the way I'm suggesting.

Alternatively if you can't get any loans/cards, then 'cutting back to the bone' and paying everything you can off the OD is your only way forward.