Sky card debt of £15k on 0% till March - what next?

Tracyk_2

My dh and I have £15k on our Sky cards on 0% - due to end in March.

We are waiting to sell Mercedes (hopefully) for £15k as dh now has company car.

Doubt we'll sell though before March.

Can prob borrow £10k from in laws at a push. But what are our options for the rest?

Does anyone know what Sky's APR is at the end of the 0%?

We tried to get Capital One card and shockingly, were refused (first time ever, ever, ever refused a card!)

Is it worth paying the 3% BT fee to another card, pay Sky interest and hope car sells withing 2 months? or any other options?

speedbird1973

Capital one won't give you a card if your CC debt is over 10k... their website has the criteria for their cards on their website...

moneysupermarket do a good job of matching your card to your estimated "score" look at them

darkcloudi

I remember from Martin's channel 5 show this week he suggested give the credit card company a call to see whether they will lower the APR or suggest to them you will transfer the balance elsewhere.

If you are unsuccessful in getting a low APR you can always transfer the balance to someone else like Virgin MBNA or Egg which have 0% for 15 months. Barclaycard has one for 14 months but as Skycard is managed by them it won't be worth applying for that. Capital One have a strict criteria.

If you take in to account how much you will pay interest on the 15k for one month, I personally would think a balance transfer would be best bet if you are not meaning to pay it off soon.

spaceman99

This has worried me now! Applied for the Capital One balance transfer card yesterday (the 0% balance transfer fee card). Didn't get an instant decisions - they said "will write to you within 7 days" and"we may request further info from you".

Doesn't look good!

It does say though, that your credit rating needs to be "excellent" as according to their criteria - one of these points was "must have credit balances of less than £10k" - do you think this could be where you failed?

My total balances I need to transfer are around £7k

Tracyk_2

Drat - must have missed that £10k limit - it was late on Sunday night dh was applying for it.
I've just applied for Easyjet - as I have some flights to book later in the year and could use the £40 vouchers. But dh has just started new job and it asked how long he was at this job and I had to put 2 months! Don't think they'll like that, will they? Though our joint income is almost £80k a year and has been for the past 5 years or so.
Here's hoping.... I haven't ever paid CC interest and I really don't want to do it now - but Sky's 12 month interest free - time has just flown past!!

spaceman99

Tracy - did you get rejected straight away on the site, or did it say they would "wrtie to you within 7 days"?

Just wondering if my deferred decision gives me any hope of getting accepted!

Tracyk_2

No they wrote to us - got the letter about 3 days later.

spaceman99

My chances are looking pretty slim I reckon :eek:

Tracyk_2

When do you have to transfer by? You'll prob get a letter tomorrow - at least they don't keep you hanging around!

We only went for it cos it had a low BT fee.

spaceman99

Well i'm one month into paying interest on my old card, so I want to transfer asap.

The card I am going for has a 0% balance transfer fee. It only gives 6 months interest free period, but we plan to move house within those 6 months - I am planning to use the equity we have in our current house to provide the deposit on the new house AND clear my outstanding balances. As such, it makes sense to move to a card offering a 0% transfer fee as long as I can clear the balanace within the 6 months.

But if I get rejected, the plan fails miserably :-(

Tracyk_2

That was what dh applied for too - he said the web site pushed him into the zero BT fee screen - although he was quite happy to pay the 1.7% advertised on TV. He's going to phone them today and see if he can get accepted for the 1.7% BT fee one.

I'd think you'd be better off hedging your bets and applying for a longer term 0% - if you can get one for 2.5% - its only £175 - peace of mind for maybe a year. 6 months will fly past - and you don't want to be caught trying to sell your house and trying to source another 0% card all at the same time??

Plus, is Capital One's APR a lot higher once the 0% is over than other cards?