Loyalty points and balance transfers

[smartboyalec]

Hey everyone,

I’ve got a major house refurbishment coming up, with planned spending around £20,000. I’m considering applying for loyalty credit cards, like the Virgin Atlantic or Barclays Avios, to take advantage of sign-up bonuses, loyalty points, and companion vouchers. My thought is to hit the spending thresholds to earn these rewards and then transfer the balance to a 0% interest card for some breathing room on repayments.

Of course, this all depends on my being accepted and confirming I can afford it. My main goal is to maximize rewards on the spend and then stretch the repayment period with an interest-free option.

Has anyone tried a similar approach? If so, how did you go about it? Any recommendations on the best cards for this, or other tips to consider?

Thanks so much!

[ZW]

Many/most credit cards don’t give points from balance transfers. So best to double check before you actually apply.

[John]

They weren’t talking about getting points from balance transfers – they would get the points from the original spending and then BT to a different card so that they get to keep the money for longer.

No point having a good credit record if you don’t use it, but it may be difficult to be approved for lots of cards at the same time, plus if you’ve recently opened points-earning cards with a £20k limit then it may be harder to get useful limits on BT cards, which would need to be opened within a few weeks of the spend otherwise you have to pay it off.

[NorthernLass]

MSE usually has a current feature on the best BTs. Most seem to have a fee of around 3% these days.

[robkeane]

1) You’ll need to find a points earning card that will give you a decent credit limit. Unfortunately many don’t reveal the credit limit until the application is successful.
2) Once you’ve done your spend, you’ll need to find a 0%fee/0%interest balance transfer card. I’ve seen offers in the past that cards will provide such a BT within X days of application. But you need to find one that will give you a decent credit limit that will cover the balance that you generated on the first card.

So although it is doable, the uncertain credit limits might be a spanner in the works.

[dshunter]

The only BT card I’ve ever got a good credit limit was Virgin Money and that was years ago. It’s even less likely now, 20k @ 4% is a big loss for them to them to get you on board.

It’s worth checking the offers sections of existing unused cards in my experience.