The current state of stoozing | 2007

| Author: Clariman | Created: 18/08/2007 | Page 2

Stoozing - There's Life in the Old Dog Yet!

A profitable margin between the costs of a BT and the savings interest

This is the area of challenge for today's stoozers. As we have discussed, most lenders now charge fees for Balance Transfers and many potential stoozers assume that they make stoozing unprofitable. While some card deals are now unprofitable, there is still plenty of money to be made by exploiting the better deals. In this section we discuss how to find those profitable deals.

Firstly, there are still 5 deals out there where no fee is charged for a Balance Transfer. However, to apply for 2 of these you need to be an existing building society member (N&P, Britannia). Now a true stoozing tactician could apply for a savings account with each of these organisations in advance of applying for a card in a few months time. See the top part of our 0% Cards table for the cards that charge no fee.

For a wider selection of card issuers with some excellent deals, take a look at the Capped Fee cards list in our 0% Cards table (second table down). All these cards should be profitable stoozes for the vast majority. Highlights in this list include the new Virgin Atlantic (from MBNA), which has a capped fee of only £50 for 6 months at 0%. Given MBNA's track record of offering repeat deals and high credit limits this was high on the author's picks for his recent round of stoozing, happily bagging £20,000 of free money for 6 months. For a slightly higher fee (£75) Citibank and BMIBaby (operated by Citibank) are offering 9 months at 0% which is also excellent.

So fee free and capped deals are profitable, but what about those cards that have uncapped fees of between 2 and 3%? With these cards, it really depends on the length of the deal. For example a 3% uncapped fee for a 6 month 0% deal is going to be a non-starter for any stoozer. However a 12 month deal at 2% could well be a money-maker, depending on your tax position. A non-taxpayer or someone stoozing against an offset mortgage will earn roughly £400, a basic rate taxpayer £280 and a higher rate tax payer £160. Leading uncapped deals are currently NatWest's 13 months at 2% and Virgin Money's 15 months at 2.98% (not to be confused with Virgin Atlantic above).

Conclusion

The challenge of stoozing has always been part of the fun. That challenge has moved away from finding SBT cards and managing your credit rating, to finding profitable deals amongst the many out there on the market. While BT fees have taken their toll, there are many profitable deals out there still and the 26% increase in interest rates has gone someway to offsetting the Balance Transfer charges. There is life in the old dog yet! To see which deals work for you, why not try our new 0% Stoozing Calculator (fast stoozing) or our new Slow Stooze Calculator.

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