Best Balance Transfers Discussion Area

Moggles_2

Originally Posted by unidentified
Made a slight mistake, I meant to say Bank of Ireland not Ulster Bank, doh.

Dear me, thank goodness most MSEs take a little more care with their posts than you
seem to.

Congratulations anyway on getting accepted, presumably with the credit limit you wanted.
:beer:

alanalana

I recently followed MSE advice to become a card tart. I am at the end of the first 13 months interest free and about to switch to abbey. The Tart alarm clock does work.

It is listed on MSE as a switch for 2.5% fee on balance transfer and 0% for 13 months.

When I phoned I was offered 0% balance transfer fee with 9 months at 0% and £100 cashback. I will let Martin give you the advice on whether this is a better option but the Minimum payment is still 2.5% of the balance or £5.00 whichever is greater.

yours in becoming debt free.

I have not used my card since switching:money:

Moggles_2

Originally Posted by alanalana
I am at the end of the first 13 months interest free and about to switch to Abbey.
It is listed on MSE as a switch for 2.5% fee on balance transfers and 0% for 13 months.

When I phoned I was offered a 0% balance transfer fee with 9 months at 0% and £100 cashback. I will let Martin give you the advice on whether this is a better option but the minimum payment is still 2.5% of the balance or £5.00 whichever is greater.

I suspect most MSEs would prefer a 9 month balance transfer which is truely interest free to a 13 month deal with a 2.5% handling charge.

An introductory 13 months on balance transfers is still available to online applicants. As you say, a 2.5% handling charge applies. BTs must be made within the first month from account opening. Once done, remember not to spend on the card

neoistheone

FYI

You can still apply for a Barclaycard 0% for 14m only 2.5% fee through this link

http://www.barclaycard.co.uk/barclays_landing/platinum287.html?TC=EXGLA12014

:money:

Moggles_2

Thanks for the tip

I would advise anyone considering this card to have a read through this thread (which was only started on 6 January 2008 btw), before you apply. You will see that Barclaycard figures quite prominently and not always for the right reasons.

maxinecook

Hi I need to buy a car and I was wondering if I should apply for an egg card and if accepted , pay for the car by cheque or cash , then transfer over the balance from my overdraft to egg for 0% until May 09.
At the moment I have £2k on barclaycard on 0% and a personal loan of £7k and am not overdrawn.I also have a nationwide cc that I pay off each month

Would this be the best way forward as I am looking for 5k-6k

Maxine

Moggles_2

Originally Posted by maxinecook
I need to buy a car and I was wondering if I should apply for an Egg card and, if accepted, pay for the car by cheque or cash, then transfer over the balance from my overdraft to Egg for 0% until [1]May 09.

Most card providers would class this as a money transfer and charge cash withdrawal rates!

The Egg card is one of those rather special cards which allows you to transfer an overdraft to them, in other words, transfer cash from the credit card to your current account at balance transfer rates.

Other possibilities are:

a card issued by MBNA (e.g. Alliance & Leicester, MBNA itself, Sony, Virgin) or the Post Office card

alternatively, you can use Egg Money (not to be confused with the Egg card) in conjunction with any 0% or low-rate balance transfer card.

Which option is best depends to some extent on which cards you have already. To maximise the 0% period, 15 months is currently available to new customers from Virgin and, at the mo, you'll get 13 months with Egg. A 3% BT fee applies.

Moggles_2

Originally Posted by maxinecook
At the moment I have £2k on Barclaycard on 0% and a personal loan of £7k and am not overdrawn.I also have a Nationwide cc that I pay off each month

Would this be the best way forward as I am looking for 5k-6k?

It's not an exact science of course but, judging from the posts on this thread, you're more likely to get a generous credit limit with Virgin or Egg than some other lenders I could name.

That said, none of us knows in advance what credit limt we'll be handed. Much depends on your existing credit - available and used - in relation to your annual income.

Moggles_2

Originally Posted by maxinecook
Would this be the best way forward?

If you will have savings to pay off your credit card balance before the 0% period expires that's great. The risk in paying for a car in this way is that you can't be sure of another 0% credit card offer with a sufficient credit limit when your current deal ends and the interest rate leaps to anything from 16.9% to 27.9% APR variable. 0% BT deals could be a thing of the past in 12-15 months time and BT fees may have jumped to 5% or even 6%:eek:

Always bear in mind that the reason the card providers can afford to lend you money at 0% for anything up to 15 months is because, more often than not, customers do not clear the debt and end up paying crippling interest when the promotion period ends. This is the main way lenders claw back the cost of these promotions. If this were not the case, these 0% BT offers would have dried up long ago.

If you do decide to go the credit card route, make sure your credit file stays in top-notch condition ready for transferring any remaining balance in X months time

Man_in_a_Suitcase

Has anyone got an ICICI Credit Card? This is my last opportunity to transfer a balance without a fee (already used Ulster Bank and Capital One). It's only a 3 month 0% offer, it's an Indian bank that doesn't adhere to the UK banking code and there seems to be a lot of complaints about its customer service (mainly savings related). Any bad experiences credit card wise?