Credit Card Balance Transfer Fees
We were recently mentioned in Web User magazine, which brought us a great deal of good publicity and lots of new memberships (thanks, Web User!). Some people have emailed us to ask about transfer fees. Transfer fees are fees that some credit cards charge to users when transferring their balances. All the card issuers who charge such fees have their own system of calculating this, and it would be impossible to give a blanket assessment of such fees here. It is important, when transferring credit card balances, to look at the small print of each card issuer when making a decision. In the same way that APR figures can be distorted by added charges on top of repayment rates (for loans, etc.) to affect the true cost of borrowing, transfer fees should also be assessed on similar principles.
Further, banks calculate different types of interest at different rates (a higher rate for cash purchases than for purchase of goods or services, for example). They also keep the more expensive parts to the end of the queue when paying it back. That is why, whether or not they charge you transfer fees, you should always transfer the whole amount every time (otherwise you'll still have that more expensive portion racking up the interest further down the line).
In line with our approach to always making improvements to our service (like our recent automation of the DIY card alert facility) we hope to instate a section featuring RSS feeds which is a guaranteed way of getting up-to-the-minute data for specific cards and products at any particular time. This would include changes in small-print detail that it would be impossible to keep up with otherwise.
We will also shortly be adding a forum to this website, in the form of a PhpBB bulletin board. We get quite a few good suggestions about what we could be doing and how we could further improve our services. A forum is the obvious way of collating and extending this discourse, and of encouraging more of the same. Visitors to this site will be able to contribute to discussions whenever the need arises.