credit cards again

[rob-legend]

i've got a grand and a bit sat on my credit card, and i wanna transfer it on to a card that isn't going to hammer me with interest on that grand, so i can slowly pay it off, anyone got any ideas?

[AndyFielder]

lol.. i could do with come of this!

i think you need to take out 0% cards for 6 months etc and keep swaping things around.

[rob-legend]

yeah, what 0% thing do i look for, i looked on money supermarket today, but it doesnt help to much on understanding what to do. haha.

[drsmith1979]

just remember, that if you continue to pay off the minimum amount it can take upto 6 years to pay it off!

you need to look for 0% on balance transfers and see how long the offer is valid, i.e. 6months, 10 months etc... don't worry about purchases, normally cards that offer 0% balance transfers have a stupid normal purchase rate. so my advice would be to get a long 0% on balance transfers, and dont use the card, start paying it off.

Credit cards are great for getting a good credit rating, but you also have to treat it like its someone elses money... which it is! haha. too easy to spend sometimes.

[FATBOY]

check out money supermarket . com they compare loads of cards and let you search for the specific card you want. i looked for a 0% on purchases card and i found the HSBC are doing 0% on purchases for 12 months :D ps3 here we come!!!!

[alex_e3]

Used to work for MBNA at one point, so got to know the inside and outs of credit cards pretty soon.

Whilst these 0% balance transfer rates may seem good, bear in mind that they all have a transfer fee of about 2.5% or 3%. In the real world, this would mean that you have to pay about £25 to transfer £1000. Depending on how quickly you want to pay your balance off, and the interest rate you're currently on, it might be worth sticking with the card you have. Credit card companies do not like to lose your business, so if you phoned them up and explained that you are not happy with the interest rate, they will generally lower it quite a bit to keep you with them.

On the other hand, if you were planning on taking your time to clear your balance, you might as well transfer over to a 0% card.

Another option to conider, if you were planning on taking over a year to clear the balance, is to get a 'life of the balance' rate on the card. The rate for this is generally very low, between about 3.9% - 6.9% A.P.R. . If you were to go down this option however, you must remember not to spend anymore on your card, as this purchase would go on the much higher purchase rate, and would not be cleared until the lower interest balance was.



Credit cards are a wonderful thing - as long as you know the best ways to exploit them!

Any advice needed let me know!

Al

[rob-legend]

cool, thanks alot matey, i will do that. really appreciate that :D