Best Balance Transfers Discussion Area

ConfusedH

Ah didn't know that, does seem like a waste of money then!!

1 card with £5000 which is interest free and I leaving that 1 alone for now (making payments but dont want to consolidate)
I have 2 other cards with £500 on each, the limit for 1 is £500 and the limit for the other is £1600 - but I am paying interest on them both so want to consolidate them.
Over draft is £2000.
Net income is £21,700
Last house move, 4 years 6months ago
no other credit aplications in the last 6 months.

Thanks

thewestbridge

I think it is really helpful topic to discuss. I want to thank to the post author.

sfax

ConfusedH wrote: »

Ah didn't know that, does seem like a waste of money then!!

1 card with £5000 which is interest free and I leaving that 1 alone for now (making payments but dont want to consolidate)
I have 2 other cards with £500 on each, the limit for 1 is £500 and the limit for the other is £1600 - but I am paying interest on them both so want to consolidate them.
Over draft is £2000.
Net income is £21,700
Last house move, 4 years 6months ago
no other credit aplications in the last 6 months.

Thanks

Limit on the card with £5,000 balance? Do you use your overdraft regularly?

The only negatives I can see are low limits on cards 2 and 3, reasonably high debt to income ratio and potentially high debt to credit limit ratio (although not if card 1 has a high limit)

ConfusedH

Limit on the biggest card is £7,900 and the balance is actually £5,500 not £5,000.
Well I have never been out of my overdraft since Uni. I don't need an overdraft, I just don't have the spare £ to pay it off and close the account.

jelajelavic

Are 0% balance transfer cards easier or harder to get accepted for than low interest loans (for example HSBC are offering 5.9% between £7k and £15k for existing customers)?

sfax

ConfusedH wrote: »

Limit on the biggest card is £7,900 and the balance is actually £5,500 not £5,000.
Well I have never been out of my overdraft since Uni. I don't need an overdraft, I just don't have the spare £ to pay it off and close the account.

You have 65% credit utilisation which can be seen as quite high (no hard and fast rules on this really but 20-40% is often stated as favourable)

If you continually use your overdraft, this is visible to lenders and can be send as a negative. I know banks recorded statistics internally for number of days each month you are overdrawn and it's considered if you apply for a loan#

My advice would be to make one more application for a different card from a different lender (2 searches is OK and lenders see only the search not the result of the application (although that can be inferred later)).

Also make more than the min payment on all of your cards, even if only £1 more. I would concentrate on paying off your overdraft first then paying down the credit cards unless any of the cards have much higher APR than your overdraft.

If you get rejected, wait 6 months or a year until you owe less and your credit history looks better, and then apply again

ConfusedH

Thank you very much for the advice.
Yes I think the main thing at the moment is to get the over draft sorted. I am just not sure the best way to go about gettting it cleared? The reason I applied for the MBNA card was to do a 'Money Transfer' to clear the overdraft and then pay back the card while it was interest free. I applied for a Virgin 'Money Transfer' card last night and was rejected. I have just realised that Virgin is linked to MBNA so that's maybe why.
I cant find any more 'Money Transfer' cards, they're quite rare.
Maybe a loan would be better to get the over draft cleared and the smaller credit cards so that it was all in 1 payment?

sfax

Not sure how much you spend each month but one way is to buy everything you can and pay bills etc on a credit card without being unduly penalised with charges and then do a balance transfer each month for the amount spent to another CC.

This will reduce your overdraft every month and effectively move it to a credit card. Obviously this only makes sense on 0% BT cards. Tesco are good for this because there is no time limit on when you can balance transfer.

Nationwide and Lloyds have the best BT deals at the moment (1.5% handling, 0% interest for 20 months)

You now have 2 searches so probably better to wait 6 months - although the third search (if you decide to apply again) will be immaterial in 6 months as well so you could argue there's no harm in trying

ConfusedH

Ah I see, yes that might be an option, I'll look into that.
Might look into a loan as well to see if I can get a good enough rate.

Thanks again for the advice.

Udai

Hello All

I am sure this has been covered but I could not find the answer anywhere.

I am looking to shift about £20,000 in credit card debts, is there a max limit offered by these companies?

Thank you