Best Balance Transfers Discussion Area

soulanon

Hi, hoping someone can help me.

My brother recently owed a couple of thousand on Barclaycard & then (thanks to this site) successfully arranged a balance transfer onto a Virgin mastercard.
The question is that following the balance transfer he is now £150 in credit on his Barclaycard account. The question is - as he is in credit - can he simply withdraw £150 from the cashpoint without incurring any charges & then close the account ?

Cheers

Moggles_2

soulanon wrote: »

My brother recently owed a couple of thousand on Barclaycard & then (thanks to this site) successfully arranged a balance transfer onto a Virgin mastercard. Following the balance transfer, he is now £150 in credit on his Barclaycard account. As he is in credit, can he simply withdraw £150 from the cashpoint without incurring any charges & then close the account ?

A credit card is not designed to carry a credit balance and this situation is frowned on by most lenders. Best practice is to make the minimum payment required to your existing card and transfer all or part of the remaining balance to the new one.

If your brother draws any money from a cashpoint, he'll be charged cash withdrawal rates and handling charges.

The simplest solution would be to shop with his Barclaycard until he has a negative balance. He can then settle the difference in the normal way and close the account.

Beerworshipper

soulanon wrote: »

My brother recently owed a couple of thousand on Barclaycard & then (thanks to this site) successfully arranged a balance transfer onto a Virgin mastercard.
The question is that following the balance transfer he is now £150 in credit on his Barclaycard account. The question is - as he is in credit - can he simply withdraw £150 from the cashpoint without incurring any charges & then close the account ?

On the (very) few occasions when this has happened to me in the past I have simply contacted the Credit Card provider and asked them to put the 'in credit' money back into my bank account. This is easily done if they already have your details because you've been paying by direct debit or similar.

I've never had any problems with this approach.

Once the money is recieved in his bank account he can use it to pay a chunk off the Virgin Mastercard and he'll avoid the Balance Transfer fees.

Good luck

Moggles_2

If you're looking for a totally free BT, I can recommend the Capital One Balance Transfer card. The current deal, launched today, offers interest-free BTs until 1 November 2008
with no handling charges. :j
Note: vastly improved online services now available.

Caution: this card requires an "excellent" credit rating, so please check you can meet the criteria listed on the Capital One website (e.g. a credit limit of at least £5,000 on an existing card, held a card for 5 years etc.) before you apply.

~~~~~~

Also, the Ulster Bank Gold card (not to be confused with the Ulster Rugby card, which is a completely separate animal run by the Bank of Ireland.)

The Ulster Bank cards offer 0% BTs for 6 months from account opening and, once again, there's no handling fee. Issued by the Royal Bank of Scotland, they're well worth considering for balances under £4,000

Note: the bank now accepts online applications and your account can be viewed online as well.

dizzy58_2

hi never done this b4 but here goes!
the free bt says 3% on the web site?
how do you get it with no handling charges? cheers

Moggles_2

dizzy58 wrote: »

the free bt says 3% on the web site.
How do you get it with no handling charges?

Sounds as though you're looking at the Capital One Platinum card.

If you click on the Browse our latest deals button, you'll be taken to the C1 Balance Transfer card, which has no handling charges :j

sammy452

Finally Barclays have increased my limit to 7000, which means I can transfer nearly all my balance on my high interest halifax card over.
I think I will take the 6.9% life of balance as I won't be able to pay off the card by the end of the 0% interest date also it is fee free.
My question is how can I work out work my minimum payment will be each month? the balance will be approx 3300 at 15.8% and 2900 at 6.9%.
Thanks.

Moggles_2

sammy452 wrote: »

Barclays have increased my limit to £7000, which means I can transfer nearly all my balance on my high interest Halifax card over.

I think I will take the 6.9% life of balance, as I won't be able to pay off the card by the end of the 0% interest date. Also it is fee free.

Please be aware that unless you clear the debt on your Barclaycard first, you will be saddled with that 15.8% rate on £3300 for as long as it takes to pay off your £2900 life of balance deal. In two years, for instance, this would cost you well over £1000 in interest. That's if you're lucky. This rate is variable, which means Barclaycard could raise it at any time. This arrangement could easily get as expensive as your current Halifax card :eek:

Do you have other credit cards besides Barclaycard and Halifax?

If not, and you've ruled out a new 0% balance transfer card, one solution is to shift your £3300 Barclaycard balance to Halifax. (The Hally will charge a balance transfer fee for this). You can then transfer everything back to Barclaycard (which, as you say, is fee-free) and take advantage of the 6.9% LOB deal on all your borrowings. Minimum payments become easier to estimate, once the entire debt is charged at 6.9% APR

King_Weasel

Moggles wrote: »

Sounds as though you're looking at the Capital One Platinum card.

If you click on the Browse our latest deals button, you'll be taken to the C1 Balance Transfer card, which has no handling charges :j

Is there any point in applying if you've already got the Platinum Card?

sammy452

Good point!

I think I might go down the route you suggest as I do not have any other credit cards.

If I transfer to Halifax, how long do I have to wait before I can then transfer back to Barclaycard? Will I get stuck at all with Halifax which I don't want to do? Will this affect my credit rating at all?