Best Balance Transfers Discussion Area

TheMysterious1

hi hopefully this is in the right place, just need a bit of help deciding on which card to apply for to do a balance transfer as quite a few of my cards are covered by the various lenders

in a nutshell i need a new 0% BT card and with my acceptance of the halifax card i think ive used up the available lenders out there with who i have cards with to have the best chance of being successful. is there anyone else i could try? i'm confused with lloyds and how they rank with my cards and i did have a tesco card awhile ago, would it be better to retry for that? i'm wanting to shut down my egg card as they as pi$$ poor. my current status is:

barclaycard 3k limit
egg 1.5k limit
virgin 3.1k limit
halifax 3.2k limit
creation 2k limit currently looking to downgrade to 1.5k

I have been looking to reduce my limits on all of my cc's on a regular basis so i reckon there's a £300-400 max headspace on each card. my current annual income is 21k.

much appreciated for your help peeps as always :-)

thenudeone

peatin wrote: »

Mr credit rating is 'good' with Experian, so I don't know why I can't do this.

Experian don't lend money so paying to find out their "score" is a waste of money. You can find out all about the general factors that lenders use to asses credit on these forums, although each lender will use different factors in different ways. If they banks know they will make nothing in interest charges they need to be even more sure that you will be able to pay it back eventually, so you would need a very good credit history to be eligible for the best offers. Repeated applications will make it harder to get credit and it already sounds like you are not eligible.

peatin wrote: »

I'm paying over the minimum payment on all. Desperation setting in.

You should be paying the minimum on all the cards except the one with the highest interest rate, which you should try to clear first. Then go to the next one and so on.

Perhaps the Debt-free wannabe forum is a better place to discuss how best to proceed?

Claire_Love

Hi All,
Im wondering if you would be able to offer some advise. I am asking on behalf of my mum who would like to sort out her finances!
She currently has 2 loans, 2 cc and a £500 overdraft with Lloyds TSB and would like to consolidate these into one and pay it off.

She has always been with TSB so this is really new to her and as i dont have loans, i cant really advise her anything. Could she just go into TSB and ask them to consolidate them down? i dont think her credit rating is great so she might have problems there.
How would she go about asking/getting a 0% APR card for 12 months + and transfer all of the debts onto the one card?

Many thanks
Claire

Cat2011

Thanks for such a great guide. I've managed to get myself overdrawn by £1,000, and another £1,500 on my credit card. I was worrying a lot about the debt. I've now got myself an MBNA card, was approved right away, and both balances have been transfered onto the card at 0% interest. I can now set up a D/D to pay off the balance, and concentrate on keeping isnide my budget without worrying about being overdrawn.

Thanks!

kittycatsam

We have a 0% deal coming to an end in early July. The current balance is on my Husbands card. Will it be an issue with the providers, if I applied for a card this time, to transfer a balance from Hubbies card to mine?

herdy_2

Hi i'm totally new to this wonderful world of blogging and just wanted to let someone know because i'm annoyed they all got it wrong, but have just phoned 4 places to transfer the existing balance on my credit card and not one of them gave me the correct info on what the minimum repayment would be after the 0% period. They all failed to mention the 1% minimum charge part, each one told me that they min repayt would only be the interest amount! the 4 i phoned were barclaycard, bank of scotland, halifax and lloyds tsb. just thought it's worth sharing. as for credit rating i think it depends on how they feel on the day!!!

geet

thenudeone wrote: »

It will be whatever mbna think is appropriate given your income, payment history, other borrowings and other available credit. In other words it's impossible to say.
I have had mbna cards with limits of over £10k each in the past (I used to have 3 mbna cards totalling £23k), but they are much much more cautious now.

i too need to switch cards from barclay platinum next month and i need around 15K. Natwest and MBNA seem to be the options. any idea who might give what we ask for - i think i have a good credit score.
thanks.

Jo4

My friend has two credit cards, Mbna and Opus, but was contemplating applying for a Virgin credit card which is 0% for 16 months with a 1.5% balance transfer fee. If their credit card application to Virgin is approved will Virgin let them transfer from Mbna and Opus or are they part of the same company?

scott_lithgows

Virgin is same as MBNA,Opus is run by HBOS

Jo4

Jo4 wrote: »

My friend has two credit cards, Mbna and Opus, but was contemplating applying for a Virgin credit card which is 0% for 16 months with a 1.5% balance transfer fee. If their credit card application to Virgin is approved will Virgin let them transfer from Mbna and Opus or are they part of the same company?

Are Virgin and Santander operated by the same company?