0% balance transfer - silly question

[rddot]

If a credit card is a 0% transfer for 3 months, and 0% interest on spending for 22 months - does this mean if I balance transfer in 3 months it needs to be paid off in 3 months to not accrue interest, or does it mean the transfer needs to be done within the 3 months but has 22 months of interest free?

My understanding is…

If you transfer a balance it won’t attract interest until the 3 months from account opening is up. e.g.You open the account on Jan 1st, transfer a balance on Feb 18th and interest is charged from 1st April.

The 22 months interest free spending is new purchases.So it would sometimes be a better idea to therefore spend on the new 22 month interest free card and use your income to pay off the other card as fast as you can.

But it can also be best sometimes to transfer to the new card and also spend on the new card if there is enough credit - depends how fast you plan on paying the debt off.

Hope that makes sense.

It should be specified in the small print. However, I would assume that some or all of the following may apply

1 - the transfer itself is interest-free for the first three months so you pay it off, and then...
2 - they expect you to spend lots of money on the card, building up the balance again because the new spend is interest-free, and then at the end of the 22-month term, you find you have a huge balance to pay off and and are no better off than you were before you started.
Or 3 - you can't pay the transfer balance off in full, and the interest goes from 0% to ridiculously high %.
Quite possibly 4 - for the first three months, your payments could be allocated towards your new expenditure rather than to clear the original debt, so you think you are paying it off in the 3-month period but you arent.
And 5 - once you get yourself into a position where you owe them loads of money, you can't go elsewhere and get another interest free balance transfer without paying penalties.
and 6 - something cynical me hasn't thought of.

They wouldn't be making an interest-free offer unless they thought they could make money out of you at some point.

It means the balance transfer needs to be paid off within 3 months to not accrue interest.

Deals are often marketed towards either balance transfers or purchases - make sure you’re looking for the right one for your purposes.

You can search on Money Supermarket for deals and they’ll ask you which use you need - balance transfer, purchases or both.