Life Credit Cards

If you have a credit card, you may have considered taking advantage of the deals promoted by the credit card companies at some time. Even if you haven’t looked at the market until now, it may be a good time to re-examine your options. With an increasingly competitive market, you never know when a card that is ideal for your needs will appear. Currently, there are 67 million cards in circulation in the UK, and our appetite for the credit card lifestyle shows no signs of abating. So it is no surprise that new cards offering better deals crop up so often.

0% on cash purchase cards allow you to make cash purchases and then pay back the cost of the items over a number of months, interest-free. This means that you can pay for your family holiday on the card and then pay it off in the months ahead with no additional interest charges. The length of the 0% offer can be from 3 to 15 months, depending on the card supplier. So if you buy a television for £600 pounds, with a 6 month offer period, you could pay the total off, interest-free, at £100 a month. However, you need to budget carefully with this type of card. If you fail to pay off the full amount of the purchase within the offer period, you will be charged interest on the remaining amount.

The other type of 0% credit card offer is on balance transfers. This type of card allows you to transfer an existing balance onto your 0% card and then pay it off within the offer’s timeframe. This is good news if you are already paying interest on a credit card balance. The most common type of offer on the market today gives you around 12 month’s interest free on balance transfers. If you transferred £3000 onto a 0% balance transfer card with a 12-month offer, you could clear the amount free of interest with repayments of £250 per month.

A 0% balance transfer offer is a period in which you can transfer a balance onto a card and not have to pay any interest. It is now common for people to transfer balances onto 0% balance cards on a regular basis. However, because of this, banks have created a balance transfer fee to try and curb serial balance transferring or ‘Card hopping’. Swapping between cards regularly to take advantage of 0% balance transfer offers can also have an adverse affect on your credit rating, which determines whether you will be accepted for other financial services in the future. The length of time for 0% balance transfer offers varies, with some cards offering up to 15 months interest free payment terms. The balance transfer fee is usually around 3%, which is added to your total repayment amount.

Many cards offer both types of 0% deals. However, if you transfer a balance onto a 0% balance transfer card and then take advantage of the card’s 0% purchase offer, you may end up actually paying more. If you can pay off the balance in full before the end of the purchase offer ends, then you can avoid additional interest charges. If you don’t pay off the purchases in full before the purchase offer time expires, you will be charged interest. However, over 3 million people in the UK have more than five cards so you can choose to have one card for your balance transfer and one for your cash purchases, giving you the ability to take advantage of both types of 0% offer available.

With such a competitive marketplace, the credit card industry companies are always trying to come up with better ways to attract new customers. This benefits the discerning customer as it means that offer periods are extended and fees are dropped. Because the credit card market is so fluid, it is a good idea to keep a close watch out for the latest deals. You never know when the best 0% credit card offer will appear.

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