Balance Transfer ????

Staciep88

Hello again everyone!

Last night i sat down and worked out how much needs to be paid off the 2 credit cards each month with stand at the following:

Barclay Card - £666.86 - 1.873% - MinPayment £15.00 - Interest £11.00
Barclay Card - £3919.75 - 2.207% - MinPayment £88.00 - Interest £86.00

I worked a way that by paying as much as possible each month these debts can be payed of by around July 09 which isnt too bad but I was hoping that you guys could give me some advice on balance transfers as the interest is really killing it.

I have been looking on the boards and so far Virgin looks like the best way to go as its 0% on balance transfers for 15 months with a one-off fee of 2.98%

Have any off you done this and what card did you go to? Any advice welcomed!

Thanks
Stacey

RedDino308

Hi Stacey,

Just done exactly the same thing myself.

Went for a tesco card in the end for 0% over 13 months.

You can apply online and fill in details of the transfers you want to make. Once approved it all happened automatically which was nice.

Quite painless really. Just don't forget to lock away the Balance Transfer Card so you don't spend on it.

HTH

RD308

Bismarck

There have certainly been people who've phoned up and obtained a "crystallised balance at 6.9% fixed"...If you agree not to spend any more on the cards, that's one possibility....another is to find some way of borrowing the money elsewhere short term to pay the card off then transfer the money back to Barclaycard on the existing customer balance transfer deal of 6.9% life of balance....there is the risk that Barclaycard may reduce your limit in the meantime but I doubt it if you are a good profitable customer.

Thing is you could treaten this anyway and get the crstalised balance at 6.9% without the effort anyway...say you've got a way of doing it and they'll see that you could be off, full stop and want to keep you...

certainly worth a go...good luck...

PS by all means, apply elsewhere but don't overdo it or you'll look desperate!

Staciep88

Now taking a closer look its between Tesco, Egg and Virgin - anyone with Egg or Virgin? I don't want to just jump into something as I'm scared there will be some kind of con to go with it..

Gemmzie

Virgin belong to MBNA who seem to be a bit difficult if you get into trouble and have a tendency to hike their APRs after 0% periods and have a 5% minimum repayment. However, when you are in a 0% period, they only ask for £5 or £10 a month which is very low. It depends how likely you are to clear the whole balance in the 15 months.

Egg do anniversary deals each year (sometimes 0%, sometimes a lower fixed rate) so they are quite a handy card to have. But their minimum payment is 3% every month.

Hope that helps

tsharp

I find Egg to be a really good company to work with (having never fallen foul of them, that is). Also, you can get cashback for card applications for a lot of cards at quidco.