Virgin Money Credit Card With Gift Aid? Get A Better Deal And Make Your Own Donations

Virgin Money has become the first financial firm to offer a charity credit card which allows you to boost your charitable giving with the Government’s Gift Aid scheme. However, if you ever borrow on your card, the card doesn’t make sense: it’s expensive compared to other deals on the market. In this case, you are better off getting a cheaper card, and making your own donations.

Virgin Money’s Charity Credit Card IS a good idea – if you pay off your balance in full every month and don’t plan to transfer a balance to the card. If you’re not borrowing, the 1 per cent cashback on your spending, which includes a Gift Aid boost of 20p per pound donated, is a pretty good deal. For a non-borrower, even this can be beaten by a card giving more than 0.8% cashback, making your own donations and ensuring you’re taking advantage of Gift Aid.

If you borrow get a less expensive card and donate the money yourself

With a typical rate of 12.9 per cent APR (variable) and a lifetime balance transfer rate of 8.9 per cent, you can do a lot better by getting a different card if you ever plan to borrow on the card and giving the money you are saving to charity.

This card charges a 2 per cent balance transfer fee if the transfer is made within 60 days of the account opening, and a 2.98 per cent fee applies otherwise.

Providing you are within your credit limits, you would not pay interest on the balance you had on the Barclaycard Platinum card in the first 15 months from your balance transfer. But you would have to pay £87 to transfer a £3,000 balance.

You would also not pay any interest for the first three months on purchases, so you would be saving some serious money in interest. You and/or your charity would be better off if you gave the saving in interest rather than the cashback you’d send via the Virgin Charity Card.

Charity cards with better deals – if you must

If you really want to give this way, and plan to borrow on the card, there are some better charity credit card options, providing you are interested in giving to these charities: National Trust, Breakthrough Breast Cancer, British Heart Foundation, and the World Wildlife Fund.

The National Trust credit card has 0 per cent interest on balance transfers for 12 months – you pay a 3 per cent fee for the privilege – and 0 per cent on purchases for three months.

The World Wildlife Fund card, British Heart Foundation card and Breakthrough Breast Cancer card offer the same deal.

Lose the card as soon as you start paying interest

As soon as you start paying interest though, ditch these cards and get another 0 per cent deal, and give the money you would have paid in interest to your chosen charity.