0% Balance Transfer Credit Cards Deals Dont Get Any Better Than This One - 15 Months!

Capital One has just announced the best 0% balance Credit Card transfer deal available on the market. And it's so good we've applied for one ourselves.

    * 0% until August 2007, around 15 months
    * The card is free but does charge a 2% handling fee on the balance transfer amount
    * However, there may well be a trick to get around this, see below

Another feature on the card is 0% interest on purchases for 3 months but we're not too sure on this because Capital One may try and play games here by treating the two debts (balance transfer & purchases) separately and only allowing one to be paid after the other. We would therefore only advise that you use the card for the balance transfer up till Aug 07.

The Number One Rule Of Balance Transfers

CC companies are sneaky so they try and trick people especially when it comes to these balance transfer deals. One way that they accomplish this is by staggering any debts. For example -

    * You balance transfer £3,000 on a 0% deal for 12 months
    * You then go and spend £1,000 on the card to buy a sofa planning to pay the £1,000 off at the end of the month
    * But no, you should have read the small print because the £1,000 cannot be paid off until the original balance transfer has been settled and worse, the £1,000 is raking up interest of 16.9%!
    * So the number one rule with balance transfers is very simple BUT must never be broken -

        If you balance transfer a debt NEVER use that card again for ANYTHING until the debt has been paid off in full.

This is why to successfully balance transfer money and debts you'll need at least 2 credit cards, the other one being for general use and spending.

How To Get The 2% Handling Fee Waived, Maybe

For those of you that don't know the 2% fee is the amount that has to be paid in order to transfer a balance onto the card. So transfer £1,000 and you'll have to pay £20. It's not a bad charge because you're still getting a great deal at 0% but why pay it when there might be a chance not to?

We're not suggesting that this will work with the Capital One card (we'll be trying it within the next month and will report back here) but this trick has worked with the Virgin MBNA card when doing a 0% balance transfer deal.

It works simply by asking, do the following -

    * When you fill out the application for the card NEVER fill in the part about transferring a balance, just concentrate on getting the card first
    * When you receive the card in the post and are ready to transfer a balance it's time to act all stupid!
    * Phone them up and ask for details about the balance transfer, what it is, what it means, how it works etc, basically act as though you know nothing
    * Tell them it all sounds very interesting and you do have say £2,500 on another credit card which could be transferred but this 2% fee doesn't sound right because you can now remember your wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend etc doing something similar and they never got charged 2% â€" now hit them with the 'is there anything we can do on this point, perhaps waive it (or reduce it to 1%) etc'

Like we said, when we did this with Virgin they relented and transferred the balance for a zero fee, so you might have chance with Capital One. Remember though, act stupid don't let them think you understand what's going on, and it goes without saying that you should be polite and charming as possible.

If you like playing these sorts of games with finance companies then you should also try this sub-strategy if they refuse to waive the 2% fee -

    * Say thanks, you won't transfer anything because you don't like the sound of the 2% fee and you'll use that money to pay off the £2,500 debt on the other card in full (there's actually a tiny chance that comment might get them to relent)
    * Then call them up the following day using the same strategy as listed above, you'll talk to a different person who might be willing to waive the fee, you never know

Summary

This deal from Capital One is so good we've taken one out ourselves. Although we've been accepted we have not got the card yet so haven't had the chance to try and weasel out of the 2% balance transfer fee. Bookmark this page (click here or press Ctrl-D) because we'll report back within 2-3 weeks with a progress report.

One final point, the Capital One Card that offers this deal is only for those with very clean credit files. If your credit file is not perfect then check out this LearnMoney article on how to easily improve it as well as this explosive article on how to get 'Default's removed from your credit file.