Using the money transfer facility on an existing Barclaycard

SoSushi2002

I need to borrow about £3000 and I read that it's cheaper to use a money transfer credit card. I already have a Barclaycard and they have a current offer of 17 months interest free (3.3% fee for the initial money transfer). I use the card for all purchases (food, fuel, etc and pay it off in full each month). How will it work when I take the money transfer ? Will my statement be in 2 parts with my normal purchases separate from the money transfer? When I pay the full amount for all my purchases each month - do I need to set up a separate direct debit for the money transfer minimum payment? Just wondering how it works in practice.

double_dutchy

I'm currently doing this on my barclaycard. They say that as long as you pay off all the purchases each month you pay no interest and that seems to be working so far......but there's no automatic way that they will take the correct payment each month, so I have it set up to pay the minimum each month automatically and the day before that payment is taken I pay the rest by debit card.

I know how much the balance transfers were (and the fees are included too) so I just need to pay the rest

The statement isn't split - I simply deduct the balance transfers + fees from the statement balance to get the total for the purchases and pay that

zagfles

The statement is in two parts but it's not obvious, you get a total balance and further down the statement it tells you what the MT balance is. There is only one overall minimum payment, so each month you need to pay the greater of the purchase balance on the statement or the minimum payment. 

But you can't automate this, either you have to pay manually or you could have a fixed payment DD and change the amount of the fixed payment every month after you get the statement. It's a bit of a pain, but you have a window of a few weeks between the statement date and a few days before the DD date to change it. 

Be careful with refunds, BC seem to treat refunds as payments rather than negative spending, so for example if you spent £500 in a statement month and get a refund of £10 of that spend in the same statement period, you might think your spending is £490 and so pay £490 off the next statement. But the £10 refund is treated as a payment so it's like you paid an extra £10 off the last statement, so would actually pay of some of the MT. If you then only paid £490 they'd charge you interest because you left £10 purchase balance outstanding. I think theoretically you could reduce the payment on the previous statement if the refund comes before the payment date, but I always played it safe and just accepted refunds would pay the MT balance and paid all statement spending without deducting refunds.  

double_dutchy

zagfles said:

The statement is in two parts but it's not obvious, you get a total balance and further down the statement it tells you what the MT balance is. 

Thanks for this @zagfles - mine's a balance transfer but I hadn't even noticed that it gives me a "Balance transfer Balance" on the statement. That's the downside of reading bank statements on a mobile!

Nasqueron

double_dutchy said:

zagfles said:

The statement is in two parts but it's not obvious, you get a total balance and further down the statement it tells you what the MT balance is. 

Thanks for this @zagfles - mine's a balance transfer but I hadn't even noticed that it gives me a "Balance transfer Balance" on the statement. That's the downside of reading bank statements on a mobile!

They are easy to read on the statement in my opinion - go to app, statement and swipe to the second page, the running balance(s) are all there with the end date 

double_dutchy

Nasqueron said:

They are easy to read on the statement in my opinion - go to app, statement and swipe to the second page, the running balance(s) are all there with the end date 

No, you're right - just my excuse for missing it!

On my latest statement it shows my balance transfer balance on page 3 (of 4) but I guess that just depends on how many transactions you have.

surreysaver

Barclaycard are one of the few credit cards which will not charge interest on your purchases if you combine it with 0% balance/money transfers. Indeed, if the amount of purchases remain within the amount of the minimum payment, you need not make any extra payments. I've been doing this for a few years on my Barclaycard.
Obviously don't pay off the purchases until they've appeared on your statement.