Should we take up this balance transfer offer

Hootie19

I can't get my head around figures at all.

My husband has two credit cards

1. Sainsbury visa card - balance £1,375.65 (22.95%) - I have just paid £60 which obviously hasn't reached them yet.

2. Barclaycard visa card - balance £699.67 (22.9%) - I have just paid £50 off that which again hasn't reached them yet.

With this month's statement from Barclaycard, there is a barclaycard cheque attached. On the statement it says this:

"1.9%p.a. interest on balance transfers until October 2008. Present the attached Barclaycard cheque before 31/05/2008, and the amount of the cheque, up to £5,000, will benefit from 1.9% p.a. interest until October 2008. A 2.5% fee applies, min £2.50. "

On the face of it, it seems good to me, but then again I've posted questions about things before that seemed a good idea to me, and been shouted down

If it's relevant, the credit limit on the Barclaycard (which has been cut up, so no temptation to use it) is £2,700.00 and the statement says the current available credit is £2,000.33.

poorandindenial

Barclaycard (BC) used to do 6.9% life of balance (LOB) it might be worth exploring that with them.

5 month Balance Transfer (BT) offer - There are lots of other things to think about. What is the APR on that barclaycard?? The reason this is important is that debt that costs you less tends to get cleared from the card first so if you have cash advances or purchases that will attract a high rate they won't clear until after the BT has been paid off and will accrue interest at the higher rate while the BT stays lower. My old Barclaycard was 29.9APR.

If you do go with this shorter lower APR offer you would do well to clear the card first then transfer back onto it.

You might also do well to check with Barclaycard about a long term good rate for LOB transfer and then ship your existing BC debt to another card then balance transfer maximum to BC so whole balance is at the lower rate.

Calamity22

edited post.

sorry replied on wrong thread!

Bismarck

There's still the current 6.9% Life of balance offer at Barclaycard...I'd clear that by transferring somewhere/ using any savings or overdraft or anything...Beware that even if you clear it there may be some residual interest but it shouldn't be too much.

Then, when the balance is zero transfer the Sainsburys over and pay it off gradually.

The 1.9% is a bit of a problem because it's not a long period and there is a fee and after October, what are you going to do.

Stick with the 6.9% offer which is fee-free and lasts until repaid (don't miss a payment though)...

Key thing here is doing things in the right order....good luck!

Hootie19

So does my husband have to just call Barclaycard and ask about the 6.9% offer? We've no savings anywhere that we could use to reduce the balance (we'd have done that already if we had).

What I should also have added is that every three months, he gets a 5% of salary bonus paid (assuming that the company hits target - they've not missed so far) which works out to about £1,600 pre-tax/NI etc. We've just had one this month, so the next one will be with July's pay.

We wouldn't throw the whole amount at the cards (as there is just sooo much that NEEDS to be done to the house) but we'd be able to put a good 40% of it at least.

Bismarck

http://www.barclaycard.co.uk/personal-home/cards/balance-transfer/index.html

have a look...do it online if you want...

Bismarck

The offer has been around for ages and there's no sign of it going anywhere just yet, no guarantees re accepting the transfer but then again, I've done plenty without any bother...if you can, do a transfer to Sainsbury then switch it all back to the Barclaycard...depends really on how much it would cost you to transfer to Sainsburys.

OR, I've heard this one done by several people : call the loyalty department at Barclaycard, ask them to crystallise the debt at 6.9% and also transfer from Sainsburys at the same time at 6.9%....I wouldn't be surprised if the agreed as they'll have some interest on a bigger amount of capital from you...and retained some good custom...give it a try and let me know how you get on...