Best Balance Transfers Discussion Area

Streeb_Greebling

Further to my first post yesterday, I thought I'd sleep on it and then apply for the MBNA life of balance card 5.9% I'm SURE I saw on the site yesterday. Well, it's not there now! There's a lesson there somewhere i.e. listen to the warning to get weaving in Martin's weekly email...

Back to the drawing board to find a life of balance transfer for just over £14000; I guess that if I can't find that then a 0% might be a temporary fix until another l.o.b. goodie appears?

Moggles_2

Streeb_Greebling wrote: »

Further to my first post yesterday, I thought I'd sleep on it and then apply for the MBNA life of balance card 5.9% I'm SURE I saw on the site yesterday. Well, it's not there now! There's a lesson there somewhere i.e. listen to the warning to get weaving in Martin's weekly email...

Back to the drawing board to find a life of balance transfer for just over £14000; I guess that if I can't find that, then a 0% might be a temporary fix until another l.o.b. goodie appears?

I've no experience of LOB cards personally but, judging from posts to this thread, I seriously doubt whether you would be handed a sufficient credit limit for your needs.

I would definitely consider 0% BT cards, if I were you. All things considered, your original idea, the MBNA Platinum card, is a good choice, IMO. That said, to maximise the 0% period on BTs, 15 months is currently available to new customers from Virgin (which is issued by MBNA). There's a 2.98% handling charge

http://uk.virginmoney.com/credit-card-v3/

JimmyTheWig

Moggles wrote: »

I would definitely consider 0% BT cards, if I were you.

I don't often disagree with Moggles, but I think I am about to...

As Moggles has said, you are unlikely to get the credit limit you need (on one card) to cover the entire £14k.
To get the whole lot at 0% would take two or three cards.
In 15 months time when the 0%s are running out you would need to "tart" the balances to different 0% cards. £14k is a lot to pay back, especially with a £10k personal loan going on at the same time. Unless you've got a big income I would have thought that you would still have a fair chunk of this £14k outstanding by then. Lets say that would require 2 new 0% deals.
Firstly this is assuming that 0% deals will be available in a year / 15 months time, and that they will be available with a low enough balance transfer fee to make it worthwhile.
Then this assumes that your credit rating is good enough to get 3 0% deals now and a further 2 0% deals in a year's time.

I think those assumptions are taking things too far.
I'd suggest a life of balance deal. Put as much as you can onto that card and pay the minimum on it. Then consider what to do with the rest (e.g. another life of balance deal, a 0% deal, or leave it where it is and pay it off as quickly as you can), which will probably depend on the limit of the lob card.

Moggles_2

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

I'd suggest a life of balance deal. Put as much as you can onto that card and pay the minimum on it. Then consider what to do with the rest (e.g. another life of balance deal, a 0% deal, or leave it where it is and pay it off as quickly as you can), which will probably depend on the limit of the lob card.

I don't disagree with your reasoning. The problem is the dearth of decent LOB offers at the mo, now that the MBNA deal has been pulled. Currently, the chief contenders are Barclaycard, Capital One & Citi and these providers, as you know, have been ruled out (#816, #817). That leaves First Direct (5.9 % pa for 60 months) and this lender is not known for generous credit limits. Still, could be worth a shot.

http://www.firstdirect.com/creditcards/gold_card_summary.shtml

A 0% BT card would be a temporary fix, as the OP acknowledges, but buys some time until further LOB goodies come along.

Streeb_Greebling

Thanks, I hadn't seen the First Direct one; perhaps if I already bank with HSBC and have the consolidation loan with them that I referred to earlier then that might be a problem too.

Did see a Leeds Building Soc LoB card run by goldfish?morgan stanley but their website didn't properly link to a page of info on it.

Moggles_2

Streeb_Greebling wrote: »

Did see a Leeds Building Soc LoB card run by Goldfish?Morgan Stanley, but their website didn't properly link to a page of info on it.

That deal's been pulled too, unfortunately.

sanmarco5

Hi, hope I am posting this in the correct place, if not, sorry.
My husband has a Virgin Credit card which was 0% for a year, now the year has ended, they monthly payments are really high, he has a £7296 balance & the interest for last month was £117.98 the monthly payment £135. seems pretty high interest.
He tried to open another card to get 0% to transfer it to, applied for barclaycard & got accepted but they only gave him a £1700 limit which is useless.
Any suggestions?

I also have a virgin card & when my interest free period was up i transferred it to another card, and then within a month or so virgin were offering me 0% on balance transfers again! so I eventually transferred it back, wondered if that would happen with his? as he has another card he could transfer it to (not 0%) then transfer it back at a later date.

Sorry all sounds very confusing!

Thanks

JimmyTheWig

sanmarco5 wrote: »

My husband has a Virgin Credit card which was 0% for a year, now the year has ended, they monthly payments are really high, he has a £7296 balance & the interest for last month was £117.98 the monthly payment £135. seems pretty high interest.

Looks like about 20% interest to me. Yes, it's pretty high. That's why they do 0% deals so people will then pay high interest rates afterwards.

He tried to open another card to get 0% to transfer it to, applied for barclaycard & got accepted but they only gave him a £1700 limit which is useless.

Not totally useless. He may as well transfer as much as he can onto this Barclaycard. At least that's some of the money at 0%.

I also have a virgin card & when my interest free period was up i transferred it to another card, and then within a month or so virgin were offering me 0% on balance transfers again! so I eventually transferred it back, wondered if that would happen with his? as he has another card he could transfer it to (not 0%) then transfer it back at a later date.

Worth a try. It depends on what the interest rate is on the other card and if he'd have to pay a transfer fee.

I see three definite options (after transferring max to Barclaycard)...
1. Apply for another 0% or low life of balance card and transfer to this. Having recently applied for a Barclaycard (and getting a low limit) this isn't ideal as it would all show up on a credit search. But it would be the ideal solution if it worked.
2. Do nothing and pay the 20%. Pay it off as quickly as you can!
3. Transfer to a different card and pay their interest rate. If this interest rate + transfer fee is less than what you are paying with Virgin then this would be better than option 2. Plus you then get the change of an offer from Virgin for switching the balance back. Note that the card you switch to doesn't have to be in his name. If you are happy to take on "his" debt then a card in your name should be fine. Thus you can choose the one with the lowest interest rate + transfer fee.

dr_oo7

Hi I have a question, I'm not even sure I am posting it in the right section. I have a personal loan of £10k with HSBC and want to somehow use a balance transfer to transfer it over to an account where I pay not interest in the year. From reading the website, it looks like I need to open an egg account transfer the money from egg to my HSBC acc therefore repaying my personal loan, leaving a negative balance on the egg card and then arranging a balance transfer from the egg card, to the new credit card? Please could someone help and just tell me whether this sounds logical and possible. Or if not what the alternatives are?

Many thanks

Anand

NickX

There are a handful of rather special cards that allow you to transfer a debt from an overdraft or Bank Account. This facility is known as Super Balance Transfer (SBT) and basically means the Credit Card Company sending funds direct to your Bank Account.

The cards that allow this include Egg, Egg Money, Post Office Card and any card administered by MBNA (including the Virgin range of cards).

In addition MINT periodically issue Credit Card Cheques that can be paid into a Bank Account at Balance Transfer rates. However this is the least satisfactory option because the cheques cannot be ordered and you never know when they are going to drop through your letterbox.

Egg Money allows positive balances and will transfer this balance to another account fee-free provided you do not go into a negative balance. This means it can be used in conjunction with a non-SBT 0% card to move the funds into your Bank Account.