As borrowers are allowed to shift the debt from several credit cards onto a new balance transfer credit card, so they make for an extremely effective way of consolidating a number of debts into one place - it is also usually a better option than approaching the best debt consolidation companies. A fee will be levied for each transfer, but as the best balance transfer credit cards come with lengthy interest free periods, you're effectively buying yourself time to pay off what you owe with incurring any more interest. Once you've moved your card debt onto a balance transfer credit, the priority should then be to try and pay off this debt before the interest free period ends. This is because balance transfer cards typically carry a higher-than-average APR that will kick in once the grace period expires.