Transferring balance on credit cards can be risky

It may sound simple to balance transfer from one credit card to the other, but it can be fraught with little hidden dangers.

Plenty of people have used the current 0% credit card market that is around right now, to save paying interest on their debts, but playing the game of changing from your credit card to a new one can ultimately cost you money if it is not done within a certain time scale.

The trouble arises when you may have forgotten the time in which you had to apply for a new credit card for to transfer to and the facility may not be set up in time, which will lead to the original credit card lumping on all the interest that you were trying to avoid.

Another problem is that you will have to always to remember to make the minimum monthly payments to your account, because if one of those payments are missed or late, then the credit card issuer will hit you with penalties, which could be a fee of up to £25 or the 0% facility being revoked and the interest being added from the date of the first transaction.

So keeping a note of dates of when payments are due and a note of when the 0% period is over is a must if you want to make your balance transfer work to your advantage.