Best Balance Transfers Discussion Area

Mr_Fishy

thenudeone wrote: »

To answer your question - the payment will be used to reduce the balance of the highest interest rate items first, which is the purchases in this case. On the next statement you will be charged interest on the purchase balance from the date of the previous statement til the date of the payment, plus interest on any new purchases from the date of each one til the statement date. Interest will continue to be charged on those purchases until you pay them off.

Hi thenudeone,

Thanks for your answer although I remain slightly confused by this. I appreciate that one should never use a Balance Transfer card for purchases, but didn't the change in the law last year make this not so important as payments now go toward paying off the higher interest rate transactions first?

If payments made at the end of the interest free period on new purchases cover all those purchases, is the credit card company still able to charge interest even though the standard balance is zero?

Let's put some figure into this:
Balance on statement one was £0 (always paid off)
Balance on statement two was £8000, comprising £3000 worth of new purchases (17.9%) plus £5000 balance transfer (0%)
Payment on statement two was £5500 before the due date

Payment was aplied to reduce new purchases first and as this was more than £3000, surely the new standard outstanding balance was £0. The remainder then goes to reduce the balance transfer, thus the outstanding balance on statement three was £5500 which is fully comprised of the remaining balance tranfer amount at 0% interest.

Where in this can the card company charge interest and against what?

I understand that interest is charged will be charged interest on the purchase balance from the date of the previous statement til the date of the payment, but there is a 56 day interest free period and the payment is made in full before this expires, therfore where does the interest charged come from?

Prior to transfering a balance, I was not charged interest on purchases within the month they were made so long as the statement was paid in full. Does transferring a balance now negate the 56 day interest free period on new purchases, even though that balance transfer is at a promotional rate?

I thank you in advance for your considered review.

cod3

I had a big phone fight with Bank of Scotland Card Services today :mad: over their plan to hike my rate by 5%. I threatened to flounce off to Barclaycard, but they were not budging. Came off the phone and signed up online for a 16 months 0% Barclaycard , at only 1.6% transfer fee. In about 10 minutes I had been given a card with a £3900 limit. I was only looking to transfer £429. A bit scary.

I plan to pay it off and bin the card.

jasonwatkins

Trying to find out some information for a friend who is in a bit of a hole with his lloyds credit card. he's got around £13k on it at the moment and the interest payments are killing him. he's told me that they're also being bumped up by £30 quid a month as well so the balance is only really coming down by around £30 quid a month and the interest alone is over £500 quid (i can't remember the exact figure he told me).

He wants to transfer the balance to an interest free card but thinks that the £13k would be too much.

It appears, having done a cursory search of this thread, that the maximum amount you can transfer to an interest free card is £5k, so is that correct ?

If so, would this pretty much mean he'd have to transfer the balance to two interest free cards ?

I'm currently googling around for information myself but any clues would be most welcome, thankyou

Cohan99

The St George Vertigo MasterCard offers a low rate on balance transfers for 12 months reverting to a low ongoing purchase rate and low annual fee.

• $55 annual fee
• 13.24% p.a. on purchases
• 0.99% p.a. for 12 months on balance transfers
• Cash Advance Rate of 21.49% p.a.
• 55 days interest free

littlemiss22

bit of advise needed i was given this link from another forum post - basically i work full time and live on my own and my mum said it might be a good idea to have a credit card for emergencies and wouldnt mind some advise on which cards are best to use its important for me to use a credit card company who has good customer service aswell...any ideas?

malkyh

I have my CC with Halifax. Was with RBS but got a 22 month 0% balance transfer.

littlemiss22

will i need to apply for a bank account with them before i can apply for a credit card? please bare with me ive never had a credit card before x

adam68

littlemiss22 wrote: »

will i need to apply for a bank account with them before i can apply for a credit card? please bare with me ive never had a credit card before x

Some do, some don't.

I think the 22month Halifax one requires a min 20k a year wage to apply.

The lower ones will be fine.

My first CC was a barclaycard. As long as you pay the balance in full each month you wont be hit with any interest.

Tixy

You don't need a balance transfer credit card if its your first card.

If its only for emergencies then you just need a standard credit card. Who do you bank with? Have you tried applying for a card with them? Some banks will only offer cards to their existing customers, others will allow anyone to apply.

Quite a lot have minimum salary requirements and all are subject to status so will obviously depend on what is on your credit file, what other debts you have etc as to which might accept you.

As long as you keep within the terms of the credit agreement then you shouldn't have any issue with customer service, its certainly shouldn't be the deciding factor in choosing a card.

*except santander, plently of people won't bcome their customers even when they give away money.

littlemiss22

i bank with barclays at the moment and my minimum salary is above the threshold, i just want to get as good as i can without doing too many credit searches.

thanks x