Best Balance Transfers Discussion Area

Rubyjones

Moggles wrote: »

Congratulations on your faultless payment history.
:beer:

Thanks for this advice Moggles. I duly applied for my credit file on the 30 days free trial and curiously the Tesco application did not appear whereas the Egg one did but with no comment. I wrote to Egg to ask why I was turned down and have not had a reply! I rang Tesco and they had no record of my application but also said that they had actually stopped offering the Bonus Credit card so that could have been the reason why the application failed.

Tesco offered me the current credit card they are offering with 10 months on balance transfers @ 2% fee (Egg was 3% fee on 6 months) and 12 months 0% on purchases so I ended up with a better deal than if I had gone with Egg. Just wanted to say many thanks for your excellent advice.

I was also able to cancel the subscription to the credit file before I had to pay! Excellent result all round.

Many thanks

Moggles_2

Rubyjones wrote: »

Tesco offered me the current credit card they are offering with 10 months on balance transfers @ 2% fee (Egg was 3% fee on 6 months) and 12 months 0% on purchases so I ended up with a better deal than if I had gone with Egg. Just wanted to say many thanks for your excellent advice. I was also able to cancel the subscription to the credit file before I had to pay! Excellent result all round.

Well done & thanks for your feedback

therandomsurfer

Another quick question for Moggles (or anyone else who can help) following my previous post on this thread... do cases where you have gone over your bank account overdraft limit and been charged count against you in your credit score? In particular, this has happened to me several times with Halifax and I'm wondering whether the Hally credit card people will be able to see those and will they work against me?

PurplePeopleEater_2

I have recently applied and received the Virgin credit card with the 0% balance transfers for 16 months. I am finishing a new build extension and was going to use it to buy furnishing, etc. But something that I don't know if people are aware of is - I can only get 0% on transfers upto the end of June 09 - but the 0% runs until the end of September 2010. So anything transferred after the end of June 09 I guess I will be charged the full interest amount. So is it as good an offer as originally thought? Anybody's got any thoughts on this?

Brian64

LilacLady wrote: »

I have recently applied and received the Virgin credit card with the 0% balance transfers for 16 months. I am finishing a new build extension and was going to use it to buy furnishing, etc. But something that I don't know if people are aware of is - I can only get 0% on transfers upto the end of June 09 - but the 0% runs until the end of September 2010. So anything transferred after the end of June 09 I guess I will be charged the full interest amount. So is it as good an offer as originally thought? Anybody's got any thoughts on this?

You can transfer cash to your current account before the end of june then you would have the funds in your bank to buy the furnishings.
money transfer to bank would the be on 0% until end of september 2010.
you would pay a slightly higer tranfer fee for this 4% as compared to 2.98%for a balance transfer but you would still save a lot in interest

Moggles_2

therandomsurfer wrote: »

Do cases where you have gone over your bank account overdraft limit and been charged, count against you in your credit score? In particular, this has happened to me several times with Halifax and I'm wondering whether the Hally credit card people will be able to see those and will they work against me?

Unfortunately, yes.

The Hally's credit card arm has limited info' about your Halifax current account due to data protection regulations but, if you've exceeded your overdraft limit on several occasions, it will know.

That said, IME banks vary slightly in the data they report to the credit reference agencies. Your Experian credit report is available for just £2 per paper copy and arrives by post in 4-6 days, so might be an idea to see what's there. (For links, see page 1 of the *How to obtain credit reports*sticky.) Experian sends explanatory notes which are a good read as well.

Once you know what Halifax and HSBC will see, you are in a better position to improve their opinion

Luke_Skywalker_1980

Right, so I just applied for the M&S card with 10 months 0% for purchases. I plan to transfer all spending for the next 3 months onto it in order to affectively 'stooze' around £2k in order to help with my house move. If it is going to take me longer than the remaining months to pay the balance off (maybe or maybe not) I plan to become a cart tart and switch to a 0% balance transfer.

Question: Balance transfer cards all seem to charge an initial 3% fee. Does this not negate the gains made by 'stoozing' or by using the 0% deal? Would I be better off just getting a long term cheap rate?

Transfering 2k would cost me £60 - how does that compare with what I would pay at 7% APR for example?

Matty007

Just a quick query guys.

I have been transfering a few balances to different deals.

I have only just noticed whilst speaking to the operatives that when I transferred a balance of £4000'sh to one card that there is a period between the confirmation of funds recieved by one card and funds cleared by the other that each card still showed the £4000 on each card and I assuming that this means I am paying double bubble on one amount !!

Is this normal and indeed legal ?

Cheers
Matty

Moggles_2

Luke_Skywalker_1980 wrote: »

Balance transfer cards all seem to charge an initial 3% fee. Does this not negate the gains made by 'stoozing'?

I think that's right, unless you have an offset mortgage or fixed-rate savings accounts taken out before interest rates dived.

If you're intent on making a few quid using credit cards, the 0% on purchases deals are probably the way to go.

Would I be better off just getting a long term cheap rate? Transferring 2k would cost me £60. How does that compare with what I would pay at 7% APR for example?

There's no perfect solution that suits everyone. Have you estimated how long it will take to clear the £2000 debt in full?

Why not plug some numbers into this credit card calculator?

http://www.whatsthecost.com/creditcard.aspx

You can then estimate the time it would take to clear the balance using cards charged at different interest rates. You can also see the effect of increasing your payments by a few pounds

Moggles_2

Matty007 wrote: »

I have been transfering a few balances to different deals. I have just noticed whilst speaking to the operatives that when I transferred a balance of £4000'sh to one card that there is a period between the confirmation of funds received by one card and funds cleared by the other that each card still showed the £4000 ... Is this normal and indeed legal?

This is perfectly normal.

The money is usually sent to your old card account by BACS transfer, which takes 4 days or so. If you chose to pay if off yourself, you couldn't do it any quicker.

I assume this means I am paying double bubble on one amount!

That would depend on the terms of your BT deals.
If you're transferring between two 0% BT cards, the cost to you is minimal.