Sign up for an excellent all-round credit card from Barclaycard and you'll get a £20 Amazon voucher.
Credit cards can be really confusing sometimes. There are so many different types: cashback cards, 0% on purchases cards, balance transfer cards, and more! If you want to use the best credit card for each situation, you can easily end up carrying five or six cards in your wallet.
So I really like all-round credit cards which you can use in lots of different circumstances. Right now, the Barclaycard 14/14 Platinum Visa is the best of this bunch.
If you have a debt on another credit card, you can transfer it to this Barclaycard and not pay any interest on the debt for 14 months! So it’s a great balance transfer card.
It’s also a great credit card for large purchases. Let’s say you want to buy a fancy new TV but you don’t have enough cash to buy one immediately. If you took out this Barclaycard and then used it to buy the TV the next day, you wouldn’t have to pay any interest on the purchase price for - you’ve guessed it - 14 months.
The Barclaycard is also a rewards card because you’ll earn Barclaycard Freedom reward points as you spend.
And on top of all this, you’ll get a £20 Amazon voucher if you spend £100 or more on the card within a month of taking out the card. However, if you want the Amazon voucher, you’ll have to get a move on. The offer ends this Friday – September 16th. If you don’t want to miss the boat, apply now.
Conditions
So are there any downsides?
Well, not all applications will be successful. Barclaycard will only give this card to people who have good track records when it comes to borrowing and paying off debt.
You’ll also to pay a 2.9% fee when you transfer your debt from another card. And you must make the minimum payment every month – that’s 2.25% of the outstanding debt. If you miss a payment, your 0% deal will be over and you’ll have to start paying interest.
Moving to the purchases side of things, please note that the 0% period for purchases begins when you take out the card, not when you make the purchase.
It’s also crucial that you have enough cash to pay off the remaining debt at the end of the 14-month period. If you don’t clear the debt at that point, you’ll start paying interest at 18.9%. That’s a ridiculously high rate when the Bank of England’s base rate is only 0.5%.
Of course, you might be planning to transfer your debt to another 0% card at the end of the interest-free period. But if you’re planning to do that, remember that you’ll almost certainly have to pay a fee when you make the transfer.
What’s more, don’t assume that you’ll definitely be able to get another 0% card in 14 months’ time. Your credit rating might have deteriorated by then and the card companies might not want to give you a 0% card anymore. In fact, it’s even possible that some or all of the card companies could withdraw from the 0% market if things get too competitive.
The final downside is that people who already have Barclaycards can’t transfer debts from other Barclaycards to this 14/14 card.
That’s annoying but it’s not a disaster. That’s because there are two other all-round credit cards on the market that are almost as good as the Barclaycard. These are the Virgin Money 13/13 MasterCard and the Halifax All in One Mastercard. Both cards offer 0% periods for balance transfers and purchases that last for 13 months. So just a month shorter than the Barclaycard.
Virgin’s ‘revert-to’ interest rate is identical at 18.9% and the balance transfer fee is effectively the same as Barclaycard’s at 2.89%. Halifax charges a higher 3% fee but its ‘revert to’ rate is slightly lower at the 17.9%.
So if you know you can’t transfer your debt to the Barclaycard 14/14 card, both the Virgin and Halifax cards are decent substitutes.
The great thing about all three cards is that they’re nice and simple. You can use the same card for both your balance transfer and your shopping, and that makes life much easier.
Just make sure you don’t spend too much because you won’t want to get caught by chunky interest charges in just over a year’s time.
More: New 20 month 0% credit card with £100 cashback | New cashback card shakes up the market