Balance transfer credit card deals are still alive and kicking. There are still more than ten credit cards with interest free balance transfer periods of 12 months or more.
In fact you have access to better balance transfer credit card deals today than at the peak of the “easy credit” era.
The problem is it may not last much longer – personal loan rates have continued to rise over the last six months, and it seems a matter of “when not if” this will spread to credit cards.
So if you are looking to switch your credit card debt, make sure you act soon to take advantage of one of the many attractive balance transfer credit card deals on offer.
Careful who you switch to
The list below shows that customers with a good credit rating are still spoilt for choice when it comes to balance transfers (customers with a less than exemplary rating may struggle to get certain deals).
Learn how to boost your credit score here.
You do need to be careful about which credit card you choose, though. As you may know, you cannot transfer a balance to a new card if you already have a credit card with that lender.
*Requires £100 expenditure on card
Having to switch lenders when you take out a new card is not in itself an issue, but the banking sector is highly consolidated, so we have a situation where one company supplies many credit card brands, for example MBNA, meaning you can be ruled out of various other lenders’ balance transfer offers without realising it.
For those who use more than one card – i.e. one credit card for new purchases and one credit card for balance transfers – the situation becomes more confusing still.
Easily solved
This is not the end of the world, though. Out of the 14 offers in the above table, there are still nine separate groups of providers to choose from. And of course once you have switched away from one group, you can cancel that card and switch back to it when your new card’s interest rate expires. To help you avoid any confusion when switching, we’ve split the best deals up into their various groups.
Don’t be fooled by all the scaremongers claiming the credit crunch has already killed off the attractive balance transfer deals. We at EveryInvestor aren’t clairvoyant, so we can’t tell you how long these deals will be here for, but we can guarantee that you’ll be able to find an attractive deal if you act now.
NatWest Tesco RBS Mint | Virgin MBNA | Nationwide | Barclays | Egg | Abbey | Halifax | Post Office | LLoyds TSB |
