[johnlondonw3]

When ordering my car I left £1000 deposit on my credit card,and said to the salesman that I would trade in my car and pay the balance ,of about £4000 on my Capital One credit card.

(My intention was to then switch the balance to Barclaycard who have 0% for the lifetime of the balance.)

He then tells me that they dont take credit cards other than for the deposit as it costs them 3% .True or false ?

Anyone else had this line ?

Any suggestions on how to get round it ,what I want to achieve is getting the 4K onto one credit card then doing a balance transfer to Barclaycard who have the 0% interest for the lifetime of the balance ,which I reckon is "free" money ie no credit charges

[randap]

Can you use a credit card cheque rather than the actual card? Failing that, you could get a cash advance (but it'll probably cost you).

Another option would be to take out a loan which doesn't have an early pay-off penalty, then do a balance transfer to your credit card - I know you can do this with Egg.

[IBMiniG]

TRUE, credit card companies charge 2-5% to the merchant, most places accept this as a cost of doing business. And sometimes they will charge you a surcharge to you for the convenience of using your credit card. Recently for me a resort that was booking day trips for another business raised that "surcharge"issue, since they were going to have to hand over the total fee, they were not willing to eat the 3%. Some credit card companies offer convenience checks to get around this, good luck.

[xdot]

Free money.... if only!

My lot wouldn't accept payment of the balance by credit card either and I'm pretty sure most others will say the same.
It had to be personal cheque (which would take 5 days to clear and therefore add yet another week to the delivery time!) bankers draft/building society cheque or cold hard cash.

Not sure of a way around it either I'm afraid.
I guess as you have a relatively small balance to pay you may be able to get a cash advance on one credit card as Randap suggested (but I think you'd still have to pay a rate of interest for the priviledge of doing that - 1% depending on the company??) and then transfer this balance to Barclaycard. Won't get you the 0% you were after, but it may be better than getting a loan...

[NEMINI]

It's very true ... as a merchant taking credit cards always costs you money and on large purchases that can become quite a large percentage to lose

[Shamster]

As far as I'm aware Barclaycard only allow £1000 on the 0% for life balance transfer thingy.

[Bullett]

Most Credit card cheques charge interest from day 1 of the balance as well, plus don't forget it will need time to clear. I'm pretty sure this is the case for CapitalOne (I used to work for them)

[johnlondonw3]

i rang Capital one earlier today specifically to ask about using one of their credit card cheques, and if this would attract the same level of charges to the dealership,I'm not sure they understood what I was asking ,but they concluded that it would so the dealer therefore unlikley to accept this method either (do Capital One outsource their work to India ? I ask as the line wasnt tooo good and accent was difficult to place ?)

[johnlondonw3]

Cash advance ......I'll look into that .
Just for the record the dealership is offering to do credit for me over 24 months at between 2.95% and 3.1% depending on the ammount I borrow,this depends on if I can sell my motorbike !

i.e. if I sell the bike I only need to borrow 4K if I dont I need to borrow 8k
(see for sale section !!!!)

[Darren S]

Quote: Originally Posted by johnlondonw3

Any suggestions on how to get round it ,what I want to achieve is getting the 4K onto one credit card then doing a balance transfer to Barclaycard who have the 0% interest for the lifetime of the balance ,which I reckon is "free" money ie no credit charges

I think the max you can transfer is £2000, and it's not as good a deal as it first looks: you have to spend £50 per month to get 0%, otherwise it's 6.9%. The big catch really is that you are paying off the balance transfer first. So basically it's better off looking at the barclaycard deal as 6.9% for life of transfer, which is still pretty good but no better than several other credit card companies(who charge lower standard rates).

Hope that made sense!

[johnlondonw3]

Not sure if I understand ,...........I know about the need to spend £50 per month ,but I read that to mean you spend the £50 on it then so long as you pay off the £50 at the end of the month you dont incur charges on the larger amount ?
If however you carry over the £50 you then incur charges on the whole ammount ......not sure if I'm making sense either .

I can never get thro.to Barclaycard on the phone to ask !

[Darren S]

Quote: Originally Posted by johnlondonw3

Not sure if I understand ,...........I know about the need to spend £50 per month ,but I read that to mean you spend the £50 on it then so long as you pay off the £50 at the end of the month you dont incur charges on the larger amount ?
If however you carry over the £50 you then incur charges on the whole ammount ......not sure if I'm making sense either .

I can never get thro.to Barclaycard on the phone to ask !

Nope. That's what I thought until I read the smallprint.
Example: If you put your balance transfer (say £2000) onto your barclaycard, and then spend your £50 so you qualify for the 0% deal; when it comes to making a payment at the end of the month, whatever you pay(eg £50) comes off of the balance transfer first. So while you still have some of that £2000 to pay off, you're getting charged 14.9% on the fifty quid you spent on your card last month. So the next month you do the same, then you've paid of a bit more off your balance transfer, but you're getting charged 14.9% on £100 and so it goes on.

I'm glad I read the small print before putting thousands on my card to get an engine conversion, otherwise I would have been a little bit ******ed off!