Credit card balance transfers can be quite useful, but only if you know how to use them properly and manage the balance on the cards that you have. By making credit card balance transfers, you can more effectively take advantage of the low introductory rates that are offered by a number of credit card companies as well as eliminate some of what you're paying in interest on older cards that have a higher rate.

If you're not careful, however, then you might end up creating more problems with your credit card balance transfers and end up getting behind on the payments for one or more cards. The information below will help guide you on how to make balance transfers successfully and avoid some of the problems that you might face.

Determining if transfers are available

Not all credit issuers allow credit card balance transfers to be made, but a number of card issuers do. It's usually easy to tell whether the card will allow transfers to it, as the information is often contained in the card's user agreement. might also check the credit provider's website or contact their customer service department in order to determine whether or not they can be made. Your credit card statements will have spaces for transfer information if they are allowed as well, and a number of applications allow you to arrange balance transfers while you're still applying for a card.

Online transfers

If the credit card provider that issued your card allows online account access, you can often make credit card balance transfers using the online system. There will generally be a transfer option as one of the online account features, which will take you to a form where you can enter the credit card number for the card you want to transfer a balance from as well as the transfer amount. You should keep in mind, however, that even if transfers are allowed by your card issuer, they may not have an online transfer option.

Introductory transfers

Some of the best uses of credit card balance transfers is taking advantage of the low introductory rates that a number of cards feature to pay off a larger portion of your outstanding debt at the lower interest rate. Transferring a portion of your outstanding balances onto the new card either while applying for it or soon after receiving the card, you can make payments during the introductory period and only have the low interest rate being applied to the majority of your debt. It's important that you pay off as much of the balance as you can however, because once the introductory period ends then you'll be faced with the regular rate.

Smart transferring of balances

When making credit card balance transfers, it's important that you always try to transfer from a higher-rate card to one with a lower rate. You should also make sure that you don't fill up the receiving card completely, since you don't want the payments on that card to become hard to make or have to worry about over limit fees. Falling behind on the receiving card can cause further credit problems as well.

Paul Rogers writes general finance and loan articles for the Loans UK Online website at http://www.loansukonline.co.uk