Good afternoon STW.

A little advice please…I’ve been wading through the money advice sites and cannot get a clear opinion on this so far so I thought I’d consult the collective wisdom.

I have to buy a season railcard in about a month, so about £7k. I’ll get a 0% interest loan from work which will cover £5k, and the rest I pay out. The loan comes directly out of wages over 10 months.

Seeing as it’s quite a chunk, there must be some offers worth doing in order to get something back on this? I have a card with about £400 on it, which could be balance transferred but what are people excited about at the mo in the world of CCs>??

Thanks in advance. G

Tesco Clubcard Credit card – 15 months 0% on new spend IIRC

Capital One are doing interest free credit until January 2012, plus 1% cashback on all purchases which they do forever (not just an intro offer) which should include your railcard. I have one and it’s a nice little bonus to get money off your bill every January which is the cashback that has accumulated throughout the year.

Capital One

Tesco card here too but I’ll doubt any new cc company will immediately service you with a 7500 limit, unless of couse you’re earning top dollar. Things have definately changed in cc land!!

He only needs £2k limit!

MoneySavingExpert recommended the Tesco one and another long 0% offer this week. Go check their site.

The OP only wants £2k.

{too slow}

I certainly am not earning top dollar and have only had a full time job for less than a year and the credit card company were very quick to offer me a £3700 limit on my first proper credit card, so I wouldnt say its that hard to get a half decent limit.
They want to make money out of people as much now as they ever have!

Railcards – check the value of them first. My gf was going to buy one for this year, but then the rate of them wasn’t actually any cheaper for buying for 12 months over 1 month, so she buys them monthly, which means she can escape paying for not using it over xmas etc. Although if the company is paying for it I guess it doesn’t matter for you?

£7000 for 220 journeys = £32 per day…

Apologies, misread that. Anyhow 2g ain’t going to get you a lot in tesco points then! Even if you get 1% cash back is it worth it?? They’ll probably charge you 3 to 4% to transfer your £400 quid so £12 to £16 charges and you’ll make say 1% on the purchase, £20 so a grand profit of between £8 and £4!!

I think the idea was to get a £7k credit card to pay the whole thing on (thus getting points or cashback for the £7k) and then pay off the 5 grand with the loan leaving 2 grand balance to pay off?

That’s ^^^^ how I read it first time??!

Don’t know how feasible this is any more but in the old days, I would have suggested getting a card with frequent flyer points with 0 card fee for first year and intro points offer (x,000 points for issue and x,000 for first x spent). Buy 7k ticket, pay off 5k immediately, move the other 2k balance transfer to somewhere with lower rate, spend all your money for rest of the year on the frequent flyer card, terminate it before the year is up so you don’t pay annual fee for second year, by which time you should have a free ticket somewhere. Then also keep paying off the other card that you had the 2k on.

Thanks all…Ha! I knew this would be a good topic / source of info, after all, shiny stuff usually goes on a card doesn’t it? 😉

Anyway the original intention is as crispo detects = to spend £7k on a card (if poss / available limit) and get something back for it. The work loan would pay off the bulk of the bill and the remaining £2k I’d have to pay off over time.

So along the lines of Jon1973’s thinking…cashback type deal / rewards etc. It’s painful enough to spend that much on the card for what you get (rail travel quality vs cost has to be another whole can of worms!) so to be able to do it and take the edge off somehow is the aim…

I’ll have a look at Money Saving Expert then…

M&S ?

Ha so bollox to the smart arses at the start! And good luck with the 7g limit straight off, plus get your finger out coz the application takes plenty of time at the moment!!

Yes, you can tell I have *lots* of experience with credit cards with that wishlist 😉 Has been a while since I got the current one.

Just out of intrest, what length of jorney does a £7k season ticket buy you ?

Would a car not be cheaper btw??

amex cashback card which iirc does a 5% promo rate initially. then a 0% card to transfer 2k to.

fwiw I got an 8k limit on my new amex.

Won’t the 0% loan from work be declared on your P11D and be classed as a cash benefit?
Meaning you cop for income tax on the interest you’ve saved by not paying the agreed HRMC interest rates?

Good spot uplink!

isn’t there something special about tax relief on loans for travel vs 0% loans just for other stuff?

+1 for the Amex, 5% cashback (up to max cashback limit of £100). So for £2K that’s £100.

http://www.americanexpress.com/uk/platinum-cashback-credit-card/

You can’t really go wrong with following the advice on MSE
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cards/best-0-credit-cards#deals

Just find the longest 0% card from a company thats wothwhile.

I can’t recommend M&S, having just closed my CC with them after they repeatedly blocked my card for very normal transactions under the guise of ‘suspicious spending patterns’

I applied for a m&s one but never went through with it (took ages for the paperwork to arrive). Tescos i was approved in 10 minutes amd theres no paperwork.

@takisawa2…it’s Grantham > Kings X. About 1hour 10mins on the train each way. Please don’t break down to how much that costs per minute or something equally heartbreaking 😕

@wrightyson…while the A1 is not bad, I couldn’t drive each way everyday – I would go insane. Plus the train time is good for reading, bits of work etc

@uplink…thanks for the heads up, though I’m sure sam_underhill may have the answer. Needs a proper answer though – i.e. from the employer.

Good luck it seems anything with a perk is a ball ache to get.

Im 2 years in work – good credit ratings have no overdrafts and fair savings. Previously had a cc from my bankfor 2k

Refused for tescos and refused for m and s Ended up getting a nationwide card which just does as it says on the tin but with much higher limet than bos card ( i work abroad for months at a time on cc and claim it back )

Completely crazy – i assume they want folk that will default so they can charge and thus not actually lose out on payin the perks !