Struggling to get a long-term 0% balance transfer for 24 months or more.

Stuart_W

It's all about exploring the cheapest way to pay off your £9257 debt. In the past using balance transfer cards has worked for you, no future offer of credit can ever be guaranteed so you need to explore your cheapest options moving forward. This will very likely include paying down the debt much faster than a credit card minimum payment. DebtChange help you work out what you can afford. It may be that in your current situation, a personal loan or additional mortgage lending might be a cheaper way to borrow until the debt is repaid or until a future cheaper credit card option appears at a later date. If you can't get 0% anymore, look at what you can get - but do check out the Debt Free Wannabe board for some great support at getting the debt down.

Martico

And don't be blind to the dangers of using credit to pay off debt - that kind of move, such as a consolidation loan or the like (if you're even able to get one) can lead to your overall debt doubling in a couple of years if you don't get disciplined at paying it off.

Martico

I would say that one of the very best things that you can do right now is to take an honest look at your finances.
This tool will help you do that: https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/financecalculators/soa.php
Fill it in accurately, with what your current monthly spends are (and income), remembering to divide by 12 any annual fees like insurance.

Then, if you feel willing to ask for help and are happy to share, pop over to the debt free wannabe section of the forum and ask the good folks there for advice, they're a knowledgeable and helpful lot. To share the SOA, there's a button on the lemonfool page "format for MSE"

fergie_

From what you are saying, your BT expires tomorrow so that 9k will start to accrue interest at a fairly significant rate. Not the end of the world in the short term if you can continue to make the minimum payments.

However it needs paid off (or at least shifted) and cards are getting harder to get at the moment. If you have no other options, I would consider a loan with a sensible APR (again these have increased) to pay off the card. Be prepared for higher repayments though.

daivid

rocktron_amp said:

Struggling to get a long-term 0% balance transfer for 24 months or more.

I tried MSE Eligibility checker.

…

Thoughts?

rocktron_amp said:

I am in flaming trouble then

I have £9257.23 on Virgin the promotion expires 8th January 2023! I wanted to balance transfer to a new card. Ergo I am snookered. Unfortunately, Virgin Money is the only one that appears on the MSE Eligibility Checker for me. I am 100% pre-approved for a Virgin Money 28 months, but that cannot be true. In any case it is not enough, credit limit is just over £13K.

My credit rating is 619, which I is still rated "good". I have never missed a mortgage payment ever.

How can DebtChange helped with this? They can't hand out balance transfer cards can they?

As others have said a forensic look at your debt is needed, and a disciplined plan for how to pay them down - others have already given far better advice than I can for this.

The MSE eligibility checker is good for letting you know a range of cards that are available but it is not a complete list, nor is the eligibility score entirely reliable. For cards that may be available you can check other sources as well e.g. MSE credit club, topcashback, other consumer sites, newspaper financial sections, even direct with banks. For eligibility the only predictor that maters is the one direct from the provider  - twice now I have got cards that MSE said 0% chance for (the soft search from the providers were much more favourable so I went ahead with the applications).

I hope this doesn't sound condescending; consider shorter 0% transfers: 12 months would allow a good bit of balance to be payed down by paying the same as the minimum on the standard interest and if disciplined with this you could be in a better place to transfer again before the 0% ends. Even on a short transfer the hit of the transfer fee will be nothing compared to a few months on the standard interest.

Marchitiello

@rocktron_amp how many cards do you already have and what is your total credit limit vs Income? This will be one of the main factor of not being able to get a new card.

There are periods where banks may actually not make offers available to existing customers but still have offers for new customers (e.g. your Tesco Example, currently they have two balance transfer card, different terms and fees). The risk with closing an account and then hoping for an offer as a “new customer” in 6 to 12 months is that the credit limit you will re-start with may be considerably lower than you have now.

Therefore you may want to risk it applying for a card (check the actual card eligibility checker rather then a comparative site one) and if you manage to transfer all the balance, think about which cards you may want to start closing to make room for new limits in the future. 

Barclaycard has a 30 months offer at the moment and can attract £25 cashback via certain sites links.

martinbainbridge1975

Barclaycard and mbna tend not to be on some of the comparison sites but they do have their own eligibility checkers

Maybe worth a look on the providers respective site, from experience I found both ok in terms of ability to obtain acceptance for a card.  When I had chunk of debt it was Barclaycard accepting me was the route that got me out of a considerable mess and saved a ton in interest

rocktron_amp

Marchitiello said:

@rocktron_amp how many cards do you already have and what is your total credit limit vs Income? This will be one of the main factor of not being able to get a new card.

There are periods where banks may actually not make offers available to existing customers but still have offers for new customers (e.g. your Tesco Example, currently they have two balance transfer card, different terms and fees). The risk with closing an account and then hoping for an offer as a “new customer” in 6 to 12 months is that the credit limit you will re-start with may be considerably lower than you have now.

Therefore you may want to risk it applying for a card (check the actual card eligibility checker rather then a comparative site one) and if you manage to transfer all the balance, think about which cards you may want to start closing to make room for new limits in the future. 

Barclaycard has a 30 months offer at the moment and can attract £25 cashback via certain sites links.

This is my standing as of December 2022

Provider | interesting rate | current | credit limit

Barclaycard	19.400%	£1,344.26	£15,900.00
RBS	9.900%	£4,089.87	£16,000.00
HSBC Gold	14.900%	£6,094.02	£12,700.00
MBNA	20.930%	£4,205.25	£18,000.00
Virgin	20.000%	£9,257.23	£13,200.00
Halifax	19.200%	£6,280.47	£9,500.00
Tescobank	17.472%	£3,031.70	£10,900.00
Sainsbury's	28.900%	£0.00	£8,000.00
Lloyds Bank	15.940%	£2,094.50	£12,900.00

Sadly I am already with Barclaycard. 

RBS, Barclaycard are non 0% rate account

I managed to do 0% balance transfer to HSBC for 15 months September 2022

I managed to close the Sainsburys card last year August 2022 - some as you said, I might be able to get back to long term Sainsbury deal as a new customer later this year.

If you use these Barclay or MBNA checker is it a "soft" or "hard" check. If you keep searching, does that go on the experian?

MorningcoffeeIV

Eligibility checkers are soft searches. 

Searches don't 'go on the experian'. They're reported by the CRA on which  the search took place.

daivid

rocktron_amp said:

Marchitiello said:

@rocktron_amp how many cards do you already have and what is your total credit limit vs Income? This will be one of the main factor of not being able to get a new card.

There are periods where banks may actually not make offers available to existing customers but still have offers for new customers (e.g. your Tesco Example, currently they have two balance transfer card, different terms and fees). The risk with closing an account and then hoping for an offer as a “new customer” in 6 to 12 months is that the credit limit you will re-start with may be considerably lower than you have now.

Therefore you may want to risk it applying for a card (check the actual card eligibility checker rather then a comparative site one) and if you manage to transfer all the balance, think about which cards you may want to start closing to make room for new limits in the future. 

Barclaycard has a 30 months offer at the moment and can attract £25 cashback via certain sites links.

This is my standing as of December 2022

Provider | interesting rate | current | credit limit

Barclaycard	19.400%	£1,344.26	£15,900.00
RBS	9.900%	£4,089.87	£16,000.00
HSBC Gold	14.900%	£6,094.02	£12,700.00
MBNA	20.930%	£4,205.25	£18,000.00
Virgin	20.000%	£9,257.23	£13,200.00
Halifax	19.200%	£6,280.47	£9,500.00
Tescobank	17.472%	£3,031.70	£10,900.00
Sainsbury's	28.900%	£0.00	£8,000.00
Lloyds Bank	15.940%	£2,094.50	£12,900.00

Sadly I am already with Barclaycard. 

RBS, Barclaycard are non 0% rate account

I managed to do 0% balance transfer to HSBC for 15 months September 2022

I managed to close the Sainsburys card last year August 2022 [1] - some as you said, I might be able to get back to long term Sainsbury deal as a new customer later this year.

If you use these Barclay or MBNA checker is it a "soft" or "hard" check [2]. If you keep searching, does that go on the experian?

[1] Sainsbury's will treat you as a new customer after 90 days, but from my past experience I would recommend you check the account is fully closed. Even if it is you may find yourself in limbo where their system accepts you as a new customer but half way through insists you are a current customer. It then says you have or can register for online banking (which I couldn't as I wasn't…), this can be resolved by a phone call to them (has happened twice now to me) but it slows down the application a bit which would be frustrating if paying interest elsewhere.

[2] As MorningcoffeeIV says these will be soft searches but it can be very easy to click through to the full application (hard search). This is no problem if you really want the card but if you were just looking out of curiosity and had another more important credit application coming up it would be worth bearing in mind.