What are my options? 0% application declined

debtfreewannabee1992

Hi everyone. My first post here so hope this is in the right place, but just looking for some advice from someone who knows a bit more than me!

I have some credit card debt which I've been paying off and have got down to £2000. I transferred this previously to a 0% balance teansfer card from 2 separate cards with high interest. My 0% interest rate is going to run out in March, so I applied to transfer my balance to a different 0% balance transfer card. This application got declined unfortunately, so I'm now wondering what my best options are from here? I have contacted them to ask for the reason why it got declined to see if there's anything I can do. If I could have transferred to another 0% card I would be on track to pay it all up by the end of the year. Do I have any other options? 

BoGoF

They won't tell you the reason apart from you did not meet their eligibilty criteria. Who did you apply to? Some are more strict than others.

I would try some eligibilty calculators that only do a soft credit search but if they are coming back as declines you are prett much stuck with the card APR.

Nasqueron

You could try another card (perhaps a "lower" tier card e.g. MNBA / Virgin rather than say HSBC) or one with a shorter period / higher fee, after that it's strongly recommended to wait 3+ months before trying. Do you have any other cards with offers?

Your only option otherwise is to throw all you can at the card, make savings elsewhere etc and try and pay off as quickly as possible.

This is why the advice is always to have a backup plan to pay off the balance e.g. savings before you do a BT with the plan to get a BT in the future

debtfreewannabee1992

So the card I'm paying off that the 0% BT is already on is a virgin money one.

I did the eligibility calculator on here and the highest chance of acceptance I got was 90% and that was for santander 26 months I think it was and so that's what I applied for, but got rejected. Then second card that said 90% chance was also santander but was for 15 months and had a monthly £3 charge. The next card after that was 80% chance of approval and was for 0% for 3 months only. After that they dropped to 60% chance and they were with virgin, who I am already with. So if I applied again am I able to apply to santander for their 15 month card instead or would that not be a good idea? My credit score is fair, so not the best. Only a few points away from being good though if that means anything 🤷🏼‍♀️

Nasqueron

debtfreewannabee1992 said:

So the card I'm paying off that the 0% BT is already on is a virgin money one.

I did the eligibility calculator on here and the highest chance of acceptance I got was 90% and that was for santander 26 months I think it was and so that's what I applied for, but got rejected. Then second card that said 90% chance was also santander but was for 15 months and had a monthly £3 charge. The next card after that was 80% chance of approval and was for 0% for 3 months only. After that they dropped to 60% chance and they were with virgin, who I am already with. So if I applied again am I able to apply to santander for their 15 month card instead or would that not be a good idea? My credit score is fair, so not the best. Only a few points away from being good though if that means anything 🤷🏼‍♀️

Your credit score is a gimmick, no lender sees it nor is it ever used in any decision

I wouldn't apply to Santander again, they as a firm might not do it, but a lot of firms will offer you a lower spec card if you don't get the best one so they may well have looked at both.

Which eligibility checker? Not all of them mention all offers as they tend to push the ones they get affiliate fees for

Your choice at the moment is Barclaycard (top is 29 months but some get 14 but they also do a specific 12 month one if you don't want to gamble on the top one), M&S (28 / 20), NatWest (13 months), HSBC (27/20/14), Zopa (6 months, no fee), Tesco (15 months), MNBA (27 months) - latter 2 are not on MSE site currently

I would suggest doing the eligibility checker on the website of the lender, not on a site like MSE or credit agencies as that is likely to give you a better idea. MNBA have traditionally been seen as a lower end one, though Zopa is for the lowest end. The MSE article suggests that for some if you are pre-approved you will get a specific offer, else it would be a gamble. 

It's hard to say as you know your finances / earnings and you know if you have been paying a good chunk of the debt off or just minimal amounts but I would say that you can get away with 1 more hard search before having to wait for 3+ months.

I applied on the off chance for the Virgin one and they did a manual review and then rejected me back in August time, I didn't need the card but it would have been useful. I applied for the Tesco one in December and got it fine with more of a limit than I asked for

debtfreewannabee1992

Thanks so much for your reply  

I went onto each site and did the eligibility checker for the specific cards and all of them said not eligible. I think possibly because I'm self employed and my income is fairly low, plus I have just had my 2nd child. However I take my kids to work with me so pay no childcare and my husbands wage is far better, so can afford to pay a chuck off per month. 

So it looks like I'll have to stick with this one and go at the repayments even harder. I have dyscalculia, so I find anything to do with numbers extremely difficult. I had worked out how much I needed to pay each month to get this payed off by the end of the year. Is there a way to be able to work this out still if I know what the interest rate is going to be? I need to work out how much extra it will cost me over the year basically but I really don't understand how to figure that out. 

Nasqueron

As an example on the Motley Fool website if you said you had £4500 debt at 39.9% APR, currently paying £250 a month, it would take you 28 months to pay, costing you £2475.08 in interest. Upping the amount to £475 would pay it off in 12 months and you pay £996.08 in interest

Given you're talking about by the end of the year, you could apply for a card in April-May anyway and you might get lucky with some more debt paid off (by the way - it's paid, not payed, payed is a nautical term relating to using pitch or tar to seal leaks!)