Juggling Credit Cards End Of Offer Advice Needed

laybackandwin

Hello Forum People  

Newbie on the boards and confuzzled with this conundrum that I'm sure one of you will know the answer to or its been answered before and I can't find it on the forum anywhere.

As per Martin's advice several years ago I transferred my debts onto two credit cards with 0% interest rate offers. When one of them ended I was able to transfer that balance to a third card also at 0%.

My question is.....  the offer period on both outstanding cards ends next year (2022) one has a low balance outstanding of about £1000 the other one has a balance of £4500.

Both cards are offering me another zero interest rate for 18 months... so I wondered if I transferred the £4500 to the £1000 card with the new 0% offer what would happen to the £1000 when that first offer ends.... would my payments each month come off the £1000 or the new transfer (and thus push the £900 into long term higher interest until the £4500 is paid off).

I hope you understand what I have put....  I have been trying for ages to get an answer from someone, even the card companies themselves.

Thank you in advance  

Brie

First off why transfer anything at this point and lose out on a few months at 0%?  Personally I'd wait.  

As for how the ££ gets paid off.....

If there is more than 1 BT on any card it is normal for the first one taken out to be paid off first before any payments are directed to the second payment.  The only time this doesn't happen is where the first one has a later finish date than the second - the payments all go to the first one until the second one hits the high % rate and then all the payments go against that.   From what you have said this isn't the case with your cards so the first scenario should hold true.  If you wanted to check you could do a small transfer onto each card and then check your next statement to see what actually happens.  

The people at the cards' customer services departments should be able to answer this but sometimes they don't know due to being new or just not interested in helping or maybe simply having a bad day.   Whenever I have a query about a card I try to get the answer in writing - usually via some message board so I have proof - and then if the info is wrong I have grounds for a complaint.  

Dobbibill

You may be able to find the answer on the payment allocations section of your providers website/app - if not CS would be able to tell you. Very often they go in date order, ie oldest first but worth double checking rather than incur interest charges on part of your balance. 

paul_c123

It will be spelt out in the T&Cs. You may simply HAVE to wait until the first-to-expire offer expires, since they are under no obligation to allocate the payment to the balance of your choosing. But if you time it right, you won't be paying much interest in doing so.

I am surprised you ended up with 2 offers of 0% without the clarity of which offer is paid first, it should be basic info for the bank to give to you and if they've not done so, there is poor service and an opportunity to raise a valid complaint.

femalemonarchfemalecanine

It depends on what card you have, but it usually tells you in your statement what order BTs are paid off

[Deleted User]

paul_c123 said:

It will be spelt out in the T&Cs. You may simply HAVE to wait until the first-to-expire offer expires, since they are under no obligation to allocate the payment to the balance of your choosing. But if you time it right, you won't be paying much interest in doing so.

I am surprised you ended up with 2 offers of 0% without the clarity of which offer is paid first, it should be basic info for the bank to give to you and if they've not done so, there is poor service and an opportunity to raise a valid complaint.

Almost all providers allocate funds first to the one either paying interest or ending soonest, there are only a couple (I think MNBA maybe?) that do something weird like allocate to oldest regardless. 

They are under no obligation to allocate payments to any balance the owner chooses yes, but if they intentionally put money to a balance that was 0% for 6 months, meaning the one that was out of free period was now paying interest, there might be cause for complaint to the lender, unless their terms specifically stated they allocate funds in a certain way.

The card statement will almost certainly show end dates and 2 months of statements would show which balance is going down