Halifax Clarity - can/should I still stooze despite no Money Transfer offers available?

figgyc

Hello, everyone, I've done a little bit of stoozing before, mostly the "buy stuff on 0% purchases and save" slow type. But I was thinking I wanted to stooze some more - mainly because I wanted to max my LISA now + in April, without withdrawing from any of my regular savers or emptying my 7% Santander Edge saver, plus to get the free money, both from interest and also as I'm planning to transfer my LISA to AJ Bell to invest it and get £150 in Amazon cards from signup bonuses which you only get if you put in the full amount. (Yes I know about the LISA withdrawal charge! So if I were just stoozing into the LISA, especially in index funds, it'd be a bit stupid. The way I'm looking at this is as if I moved £8k from my reg savers to my LISA, and then moved £8k from credit cards to my regular savers, and both of those moves would be sensible by themselves, but just doing it in a different order to get around regular savers having monthly deposit limits.) Although I've run into a minor roadblock. (I think it's minor anyway? I'm not sure how much of a problem this is).


I applied for a Halifax Clarity card on the 24th February and got approved with a £600 limit, it's not physically arrived yet so I haven't started, but I had heard it was good for 0% money transfers. But when I go on the app under money transfers it just says "Sorry, there are no offers currently available on your card. Offers are regularly reviewed so this may change soon.". I did try activating it which didnt change anything, other than letting me see the card details in the app which I used to buy something online which didnt change the offers either. They do give me an offer for balance transfers in (29.9% over 3 months with 0% fee) but thats not that helpful, but does show they do have some offers for me at least.

Reasons I can think of for this:

• Is my card too new? Or my account? My relationship with Halifax has only been since October 2023 when I heard about the 3x£5 Halifax Reward trick, which is all I use it for. My current oldest account with LBG as a whole is a Club Lloyds from June 2023. (I had a u19 bank account with Lloyds since like 2012 but I switched it away to Nationwide in 2022, oops! By the way Nationwide's my current oldest financial relationship on my report now.)

• Is it because my current credit position is too stretched? I already have a Barclaycard Platinum maxed with £800 of 0% purchases (good thru October 2025). I also have an empty ex-stooze card that's out of the promo period from Sainsbury's Bank with a £1700 limit. Lastly and maybe this is the problem, I have maxed out my £250 interest free overdraft with FD and am using all £50 interest free of a £220 total overdraft with Club Lloyds (part of LBG) to stooze those as well, I don't use either of those accounts for any bills, only for the regular savers and the free Disney+, so there's no risk of me going further overdrawn from my POV but maybe Halifax don't see it that way. I have a £500 limit overdraft with Santander as it's my main bank but I never dip into it, I always repay it before 8pm and use it only as a buffer, I keep my account at £0 most of the time so I can have all my money in savings. I also have a £250 limit with Zilch (the BNPL provider) but I never actually BNPL with it, I only use it for the cashback. Other than that I have no debt, no interest paying debt, no missed payments or other bad things. I know the scores meaningless because the 3 agencies disagree wildly on it - on Experian I have 620/999, my Equifax (ClearScore) has been stuck at 275/1000 since June, my TransUnion is 580/710 (thats 816/1000). Maybe if I wait a bit for the new cards to show up on Halifax's offer system would that help (less utilisation) or hinder (too much new credit)?

• Is it possible to money transfer even when there is no "offer" here, like do you have to call up? Or do it in branch? (If the latter can you do it at a Bank of Scotland? I don't live near any Halifaxes as I'm in Scotland and they closed them all.) The t&cs do say the "non promotional" MT fee is 0%.

Also how good of an idea is it to instead create balances to transfer by withdrawing cash (no fee with the Clarity) from a cash machine? Fortunately I'm near a Santander with 24/7 outside cash machines that take deposits so accessibility is not an issue.

• Main issue I've heard of is that cash advances show up on your Experian credit report and can affect lending. I've already been accepted for the BT cards and I'm not planning on doing any further lending soon - as stated I already have quite a big cash buffer as it is, considering my salary is only ~£22k for now and I'm quite frugal with my expenses, I manage to save about £700/month from my salary of about £1.4k after tax and 8% pension contributions. I'm doing an apprenticeship till August 2026, I would like to buy a flat or house eventually but I might move after the apprenticeship ends depending on job availability, so I won't be buying until 2027 at the very earliest. But I've heard they stay on your file for 6 years which isn't till 2030! Does anyone have experience on if they show up on the Clarity if you pay them off, since it is fee free? Or whether or not mortgage lenders actually care? Also do credit cards search your file when you try to do a BT, would they decline me for that and mess the plan up?

• The only other problem I know of is the Clarity charges interest. Not much mind for 18 working days of taking £500 out a day (which is the cash limit) compared to 13+ months but not nothing certainly. Is it possible to time the ATM withdrawals and balance transfers with Natwest/RBS/Nationwide so they come in the same day the cash goes out? I know Nationwide says 1 working day but RBS/Natwest say it takes 2? I know I could do them early and put the account in the green but I'm worried my account would be flagged especially if I am using a cash machine to take out the credit balance. (I'm thinking do the Nationwide last because it only starts the 0% when you transfer in.) Lastly if you are charged is there a way to pay the interest off quickly like before your statement so it doesnt compound?

In terms of stoozing destination cards I've just applied and got each of the Natwest+RBS 13 month no fees cards with a £3150 limit each, and a Nationwide Member card with 18 months 1.5% fee and a £3600 limit. So about £9k considering the "only 95% of limit on balance transfers" type rules. (I can't seem to get Ulster to do the eligibility check, it forces me to log into internet banking but the credit card page on there is just blank, the app doesnt work either, maybe the systems not updated right because I only just opened a bank account there a few weeks ago for the switch deal?)


Sorry this is my first post, bit long and probably too detailed but I didn't want to leave anything out. You can probably tell I have a bit of an obsession with maximising how much money I can squeeze from the banks I think I'm well researched financially in general but there are some things you can't Google. Thanks a lot!

MorningcoffeeIV

It's difficult to follow your post but it looks like you're living in overdrafts and carrying other debt.

That's going to take you out of the pool for decent offers for a lot of lenders.

figgyc

MorningcoffeeIV said:

It's difficult to follow your post but it looks like you're living in overdrafts and carrying other debt.

That's going to take you out of the pool for decent offers for a lot of lenders.

Hmm yeah I suppose it could looks that way. Maybe I should pay off the overdrafts? They are interest free and I have like £15k in savings already so im not struggling I just like the interest but thats probably a bit irrational. And Im not spending beyond my income by any measure my expenses are quite low.

MorningcoffeeIV

figgyc said:

MorningcoffeeIV said:

It's difficult to follow your post but it looks like you're living in overdrafts and carrying other debt.

That's going to take you out of the pool for decent offers for a lot of lenders.

Maybe I should pay off the overdrafts? 

No. You should definitely pay off the overdrafts.

fatbelly

Overdrafts usually have an effective apr of 40% so you need to get out of them as a priority

BoGoF

You do realise the effect on your credit file if it shows you are consistently in overdraft?

figgyc

Okay I hear everyone, I didn't realise that being in the overdraft would be bad for credit if it was interest free, I thought missing the interest payments or going unarranged was the problem, like with credit cards. So I have payed them off.

Is there anything else I should do or any answers to my other questions? Thank you

amanda1024

If the overdrafts are interest free I'm not sure they're necessarily the issue (I also use my first direct interest free £250 overdraft). But a couple of other bits I picked up:
- generally with stoozing the idea is to put the cash where you can get at it if needed (in case the credit provider asks for the money back suddenly). Using the stoozed money for a S&S LISA seems particularly high risk given the investments can go down in value
- it sounds like rather than specifically applying for a money transfer card, you've just applied for a card on the off chance in the hope it'll have the offer you want? I think that's the main issue here
- you've recently applied for three credit cards which won't look great - it can make it look like you're desperate for money
- withdrawing cash on a credit card is generally seen as a bad idea - both because of high charges and interest, and because it comes out on your credit history. I don't know about that specific card though

figgyc

amanda1024 said:

If the overdrafts are interest free I'm not sure they're necessarily the issue (I also use my first direct interest free £250 overdraft). But a couple of other bits I picked up:
- generally with stoozing the idea is to put the cash where you can get at it if needed (in case the credit provider asks for the money back suddenly). Using the stoozed money for a S&S LISA seems particularly high risk given the investments can go down in value

I do know that S&S is high risk and I agree stoozing just for that would be a bad idea. I tried to explain this in my first post but just to expand on my logic. I want to put £8k in my LISA and I plan to do that anyway stooze or no stooze. So I figured there's 3 ways to go about it. For simplicity say I'm only stoozing £8k ignoring any extra credit above that, starting out with £14k in savings and ignoring any money already in my LISA (about £750 from a previous tax year):

1. If i didnt stooze base case, just put £8k in my LISA. I'd end up with £8k in my LISA and £6k in my savings.
   
2. Take £8k out of my regular savers to put in in the LISA. Then stooze £8k into easy access saver. End result: I have 8k in my LISA and £14k cash. But £8k of that cash is new so I can't put all of it in regular savers straight away, I'd have to drip feed it over a few months which would reduce my return
3. Stooze £8k and send it to my LISA. This way I wouldnt have to withdraw any of my regular savings. End result: 8k in the LISA, still £14k cash, but it's still in regular savers so more interest.
4. I suppose as the other extreme I could decide to stooze (surely I kind of have to now otherwise I've taken out a bunch of credit cards for no reason!) but not put any money in my LISA. End result: 0 in my LISA, £22k in savings.
   

Since I already have more than £8k in savings I don't see any risks in terms of not being able to pay it off even if an unexpected expense comes up.

- it sounds like rather than specifically applying for a money transfer card, you've just applied for a card on the off chance in the hope it'll have the offer you want? I think that's the main issue here

Yeah that is sort of the problem. The reason I decided to go for the Halifax Clarity it this way is I figured even if I don't get any offers I could still use the cash machine trick to build up a balance, i've addressed that below. I tried eligibility checkers for the top money transfer cards and couldnt get either the virgin or the tesco one, probably because of the other issues.

- you've recently applied for three credit cards which won't look great - it can make it look like you're desperate for money

This is true and it might be why halifax isnt offer me a deal.

- withdrawing cash on a credit card is generally seen as a bad idea - both because of high charges and interest, and because it comes out on your credit history. I don't know about that specific card though

The Halifax Clarity is a travel card with 0% cash machine fee. The credit history is definitely a good point, although I figure if im not taking anything else out its not a big deal short term? My main question mark was the long termness of it. I would end up paying a few days interest but not much in the grand scheme of things if I BT straight away.

BoGoF

Going to be honest, I think your "obsession with maximising how much money I can squeeze from the banks" is somewhat clouding your judgement. 

figgyc

BoGoF said:

Going to be honest, I think your "obsession with maximising how much money I can squeeze from the banks" is somewhat clouding your judgement. 

Yeah this is true or at least it was a few days ago when I got the idea. I saw on the halifax app they could give me a credit card and when i realised i could get the clarity it sort of went from there, I think i was in a bit of an "im a genius" headspace when im not really.

I suppose my problem now is I don't have a time machine. So I've done like 4 hard searches and their not going to go away even if I cancel the credit cards. So my credit is already going to be dinged. So i see no reason not to at least keep them. If i cancel them im probably not going to get another one if i need it (which I'm pretty sure i won't but wouldnt want to risk it).

So at this point i think in the short term im not getting any more credit, whether I stooze with the cards or not. So whats the downside? For me the only factor I can see is how bad the "making a bunch of cash withdrawals" signal is on my credit report and how long it lasts. And I thought I read people had done that before so I was hoping to draw from peoples experience in that, but maybe im wrong.