April 27, 2006

By Peter Kenny

One of the most successful in the last 18 months has been the offer from Virgin.

All Virgin credit card holders received the benefit of 0 per cent on all balance transfers from the time of their account opening, excellent discounts of up to 10 per cent from Virgin retail stores and for every £1 you spend you will receive one Virgin reward point. The Virgin reward points can be redeemed against purchases at Virgin stores on items like CD’s, DVD’s and mobile phones.

Virgin have now improved on the above benefits by offering their new credit card holders 0 per cent on all purchases for the first 5 months of their account opening.

The Virgin credit card has been very useful for consumers who like to transfer their existing balance from another credit card. Anyone using their Virgin credit card to make a purchase would be charged their standard 15.9% APR. The problem people find is that any payments they make to their credit card account is not allocated to the items that are charged at the higher interest (15.9%) Instead, items at the lowest rate of interest are paid off first, in other words the balance that was transferred from the previous credit card.

Now that Virgin has introduced this 0 per cent on all purchases offer has made this deal one of the best around. If you have a balance to transfer you can still use your credit card to make purchases and not be penalised at the higher interest.

One note of caution, as with many other Virgin introduced a balance transfer fee of 2% last year. This I am afraid is what is fast becoming a standard fee for that come with an introductory balance transfer deal.

Click here for more details on the Virgin credit card