Help with credit cards??

[spam_face]

i was looking to get a loan for a car but then thought about a credit card with 18 months interest free on balance transfers, does anyone know if there is a maximum you can borrow on them?, need about £3000.

[mxyzptlk]

Some garages may have a limit on how much they will charge to a credit card.

[gingejbee]

You will be able to spend up to the credit limit - that's decided by the card issuer. So, if you can get a credit limit bigger than you want to spend, you're OK.

[woofgang]

The maximum varies with your credit rating and what the card company will offer...you'd have to buy the car on another credit card first though to get the balance transfer deal and there is a fee to pay.

[gingejbee]

...although the first answer holds true, too. Best ask the car seller first....

[spam_face]

i would probably transfer to my bank and pay from there, the fees about 3 per cent which would work out alot cheaper than the loans i've looked at all 17.9 per cent and above

[milly143]

Would garages be more accepting if it's a debit card? I only ask as the past two vans we have purchased have been paid in full with the debit card. One was £15,000 and the other £28,0000 so both garages would have had very high limits.

[spam_face]

well i'd pay with a debit card, i'd use the credit card to do a balance transfer first, just looked at some but the limit looks like it's £1200 on most, don't want to end up with 3
:-S

[mxyzptlk]

I bought 1 car and the garage would only accept £500 on the CC. but another accepted the full deposit of 3 grand. So it will be down to individual garages as to their limits.

[milly143]

I'm confused about you doing the balance transfer first... wouldn't you need to purchase the car using one card and then transfer the debt to the 0% card? You couldn't do that before you bought it. Have I misunderstood what you mean?

[redcrx]

the interest free balance transfer is for paying off another credit card. It will not be for cash advances to your bank account.

[spam_face]

sorry guys, think i need a bit of education when it comes to credit cards, thought you could transfer money into a bank account.... think i may just have to do it the old fashioned way and save hard :-)

[mccfluff]

a balance transfer to used to transfer the balance of one card to another, so that's not going to work in this case,
if you can get a card that offers a period interest free with enough credit then you may be able to do it that way. but you need to be able to pay the balance off within that time, or you will be charged interest and it will be alot more than 3%

[ubasses]

You can transfer from credit card to bank account but it is treated like a cash withdrawal, not a purchase. Car Salesrooms do not usually take credit cards because of the percentage they have to pay on the transactions. Never had a problem paying on a debit card they just had to do a security check

[Canary42]

Why not give Zopa a try. You might end up borrowing £10 from me :) (at a much better rate than the Greedy Credit Card companies)

http://uk.zopa.com/ZopaWeb/

[andy-hughes]

spam_face - first of all you have a debt - let's say £1,000 on a credit card.

You can then transfer that debt onto another card offering you a good free transfer time limit - some are up to sixteen months. There will be a fee, around 3% to transfer.

If you wish to move that £1000 into your bank, then that will be seen by the credit carc company as a cash transaction, which will attract their seriously high cash interest rates, wiping out the benefit of the initial transfer deal. The credit card companies are not going to allow you to loan their money to your bank for minimum rates, otherwise we'd all be doing it!

Ideally, you need to ensure that that the free balanace transfer refers to cash and purchases - which most do.

Then buy your car with your credit card, and mame sure you pay the balance off within the time - not sure, but you may find that failure to do that will render you liable for interest on the whole transfer amount, not just the remaining balance.

A final word of cuation - make sure that your payments reach the bank on time every month - you need to pay in at least ten days before your stated due date if paying by transfer, or at least two days if paying in by cash. Failture to get the payment in on time is your responsibility, and the company can and will cancel your free transfer agreement and sting you for a fortune!

[bednobs]

As others have suggested, you can't do what you are proposing. Say you took out a CC with a £3000 limit, and wanted to put the £3000 in your bank account. The CCcompany would treat that as a "cash advance" Most CC's have a higher rate for cash advances (at least over 20%, often much higher)

A balance transfer would be like if you had a nationwide CC on which you owed £3000 and took out a santander card and transferred the balance onto there (so you would owe santander the money instead of nationwide) They would charge you a fee of (usually) 3% of the balance you were transferring, so in fact you would actually be transferring £3090 onto there

[brenda]

I don't now about now , but I bought my car on 2 credit cards 5 years ago.the cost of the car was 11K, the garage was not too keen and pulled their face a bit , so just said Ok , no probs I 'll get one from another dealer. They then said I could have it. It was a big company in the N East and the car was new, with no part ex.
Hope things work out well for you.

[Old_Geezer]

That wasn't a surreptitious ad was it ?

[bednobs]

you really are a man's willy aren't you? no ads!
plus the op dosen't have financial problems