Best Balance Transfers Discussion Area

AMH82_2

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

You are right to worry. I would have thought that the £350 will sit there racking up interest.

But, beggars can't be choosers. If you can't get another 0% deal then this is probably still your best bet.
If your outstanding balances are significantly more than £350 then it may be best to do the transfer anyway and take the hit of interest on the £350 in order to benefit from the 0% on the rest of your debt.

Alternatively you could transfer the £350 elsewhere then transfer it all back again, but this could be time consuming which would cost you in interest anyway.


To be sure what is best, let us know the interest rates you are paying on the three cards and what your other balances are...

OK, I currently have 3 cards, a Lloyds Airmiles Duo, HSBC and Egg.

The Egg and HSBC cards were used for 0% transfers, but have now expired leaving me with £2100 (£3k limit) on the Egg card (at 16.9%) and £4500 (£5k limit) on the HSBC card (£2000 of which is at 3.5% for 5 further months, the rest is at std rate ~ 17%). The Lloyds card is what I use if I need to make purchases and has £350 (£12k limit) on it currently.

I pay £200 off per month on the egg, and £150 on the HSBC one. The Lloyds one I pay minimum or balance depending what's on it, how the month is going, etc.

I got offered some balance transfer cheques from Lloyds for 0% for six months, 3% fee on each. So I was considering transferring both the Egg and HSBC cards to it, closing one of them and keeping the other open for purchases. As i say, what is troubling me is the £350 already on the Lloyds card and how it would be billed/accumulate interest with the 0% balance put on top.

I guess the other option is to take out a free transfer from Lloyds to my Egg, then transfer it all back, but as the Lloyds offer runs out the end of the month, I'm not sure that I have enough time.

I would just apply for another card to transfer it all, but I have been declined for Virign and Tesco in the last 6 months so haven't bothered since. Not sure why as my record with Experian checks out fine, and had no bother renewing my mortgage in September.

JimmyTheWig

AMH82 wrote: »

OK, I currently have 3 cards, a Lloyds Airmiles Duo, HSBC and Egg.

The Egg and HSBC cards were used for 0% transfers, but have now expired leaving me with £2100 (£3k limit) on the Egg card (at 16.9%) and £4500 (£5k limit) on the HSBC card (£2000 of which is at 3.5% for 5 further months, the rest is at std rate ~ 17%). The Lloyds card is what I use if I need to make purchases and has £350 (£12k limit) on it currently.

I pay £200 off per month on the egg, and £150 on the HSBC one. The Lloyds one I pay minimum or balance depending what's on it, how the month is going, etc.

I got offered some balance transfer cheques from Lloyds for 0% for six months, 3% fee on each. So I was considering transferring both the Egg and HSBC cards to it, closing one of them and keeping the other open for purchases. As i say, what is troubling me is the £350 already on the Lloyds card and how it would be billed/accumulate interest with the 0% balance put on top.

I guess the other option is to take out a free transfer from Lloyds to my Egg, then transfer it all back, but as the Lloyds offer runs out the end of the month, I'm not sure that I have enough time.

I would just apply for another card to transfer it all, but I have been declined for Virign and Tesco in the last 6 months so haven't bothered since. Not sure why as my record with Experian checks out fine, and had no bother renewing my mortgage in September.

I agree there is probably not enough time to move the money from Lloyds to Egg and back again, so lets ignore that option.
Lets look at your options over the next 6 months...

Option 1 is to leave things as they are.
On your Egg card you will be paying about £30 a month interest. So you are repaying capital at £170 a month. This will approximately halve your balance in this time. Obviously, then, you will be paying less that £30 a month interest by the end.
You will pay about £130 interest on this card in 6 months.

With the HSBC card, I will assume that the promotional rate gets paid off first. You are currently paying about £5.80 a month interest on the promotional balance, and £35 a month interest on the rest. That gives you capital repayments of about £110 which will help reduce your promotional balance by about a third.
So over the six months you might pay £29 interest on the promotional balance and £210 interest on the rest.

This means that on these two cards you will pay £370 interest in 6 months.


Option 2 is to transfer all balances to Lloyds.
This will incur a 3% transfer fee. That's about £200 in total.
Then you will pay no interest on the balances but you will pay interest on the £350 every month.
You haven't said what the interest rate is, so lets assume the worst that it's 29.9%. Over 6 months that would be about £54. (In reality, if the interest rate is more like your other cards, this would be about £30.)
So the total cost to this option is about £250.

Option 2 (transfering your balances) saves you about £120 over six months. I'd say that was worth doing.


P.S. If you are paying off the non-promotional rate at HSBC first (I doubt it) then you would be better off just transfering this and leaving the promotional rate amount there.

emz121

thanks for your reply.

i have spoken to Halifax and Vanquis have rejected the payment from them as Vanquis do not except payment from another credit card , they will only except payment from a Debit current account. Vanquis havent stated this in there terms that i cannot balance transfer my outstanding amount to another credit card , the only reason i got the Halifax credit card was to pay off my Vanquis card and i cant even do that.

I have asked Halifax if they can transfer the amount of £1150 to my current account so i can pay off Vanquis through my direct account but they cannot do this. So i think i am stuck with Vanquis.

thanks :-(

JimmyTheWig

emz121 wrote: »

I have asked Halifax if they can transfer the amount of £1150 to my current account so i can pay off Vanquis through my direct account but they cannot do this. So i think i am stuck with Vanquis.

Do you have any other credit cards?

What you could do is get an Egg Money card. This could act as a mule card where you could transfer the money from Halifax to Egg Money and then transfer the positive balance on your Egg Money card to your bank account with no fee. Note that not many cards allow you to do this - quite possibly this is the only one.

The problem with this, however, is that it is another credit application soon after getting your Halifax card. It might be seen by Egg that you are desperate for credit. The good thing, though, is that you don't need a good credit limit on the Egg Money card as you are using it for positive balances.

Or does someone you trust have an Egg Money card? You could transfer the money to their card and they could then pay it into their bank account and give it to you. For a while, though, the money would be theirs (while the debt to Halifax would be yours) which is why you would have to trust them.

The other option is to do it slowly. I believe that the Halifax card is 10 months interest free for purchases as well as balance transfers. So, for the next 10 months do all of your regular spending (e.g. supermarket, petrol, etc) on your new Halifax card instead of using cash or debit card. The cash will build up in your bank account. Don't spend it! Then make the minimum repayment to Halifax and use the rest of the cash that has built up to pay off chunks on your Vanquis card. It's far from ideal, but better than nothing.
At least then at the end of the 10 months you could get another 0% deal and transfer the debt from Halifax without the same problems that you have now.


If you decide to use one of these methods but are not clear quite how it works please ask, as there is the potential for them to go wrong if you do it badly...

emz121

thank you , your information has been really helpful.

think am i going to go with paying my Vanquis Card off over the next 3months by using my Halifax card for all my spending and letting my money build up in my current account. thank you for your advice. thought i was stuck in a rut.

GrammarGirl

Moggles wrote: »

Have you checked your credit reports lately? This is the information UK lenders see when you apply for a new credit card. (For help, see the *How to obtain credit reports* sticky.)

Are you registered on the electoral roll at your current address? If not, this would explain why HSBC took so long to process your application and why NatWest and Virgin turned you down.

For tips to improve your chances of credit card acceptance, have a look at the *Credit Rating: how it works and how to improve it guide*, especially Martin's *Manage and Improve your credit score* article

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/credit-rating-credit-score#improve

Thanks for your reply Moggles! I mentioned this is another thread - I applied for my credit score from Experian but they requested a copy of my passport before processing my report. So, I need to get round to sorting this, which i WILL do! :rolleyes: As for the electoral roll issue, I have just been sent a form from the Council requesting all tenants of my property to enter information and return in order to register ourselves on the electoral register. So that solves that problem too!

Can you (or anyone else) advise as to how long is best to wait between applications? I applied for the Natwest card in mid-august and the Virgin card soon after that. I don't want to have lots of applications close together as I understand this counts as a negative on your credit score?

Moggles_2

GrammarGirl wrote: »

I applied for my credit score from Experian but they requested a copy of my passport before processing my report, so I need to get round to sorting this, which I WILL do! :rolleyes: As for the electoral roll issue, I have just been sent a form from the Council requesting all tenants of my property to enter information and return in order to register ourselves on the electoral register, so that solves that problem too! Can you advise as to how long is best to wait between applications?

It's important to get on the electoral roll first. Some lenders routinely reject applicants whose ID cannot be verified electronically via the electoral register

Also, Experian will not need a copy of your passport once you're registered.

language_2

Hi,
Am new to this site, but I have just been turned down for an egg card to transfer a balance. I have an existing loan with them but have just transferred a balance to a different card.Am trying to sort out my finances at long last. I'm not sure what to do now. Is it worth me applying for another one? I checked my credit score and its good and I never miss any payments. Any advice would be appreciated.:money:

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Moggles_2

language wrote: »

I have just been turned down for an Egg card to transfer a balance. I have an existing loan with them but have just transferred a balance to a different card. Is it worth me applying for another one? I checked my credit score and its good and I never miss any payments. Any advice would be appreciated.

Which credit cards do you have at the mo?

GrammarGirl

Moggles wrote: »

It's important to get on the electoral roll first. Some lenders routinely reject applicants whose ID cannot be verified electronically via the electoral register

Also, Experian will not need a copy of your passport once you're registered.

I've sent the electoral register forms off today. I should've sorted it before I applied for my credit report from Experian, but it didn't even enter my mind as the reason they were asking for my passport! And as I'm already signed up and they have all my details, I'm guessing I cannot register again for the free trial? At the moment, I can sign into my account but all that appears is a message asking me to send the appropriate documents... I cannot access any of the features. So, I've sent off my passport for the time being and we'll see what happens now. Thanks for your help! :rolleyes: