Yesterday we published the results of our December-January poll which asked compareandsave.com readers what they were planning to do with their credit card balances at the start of 2009.

In this new type of blog, we will go through the results of the most recent poll and analyse what they could mean.

The first point to note is that ‘balance transfer to a 0% offer’ was the most popular response with 56% of the votes. On first seeing the data, it would not be unreasonable to predict that this would have been a lot higher a year ago.

This leads us on to the reasons why it’s probably lower this year.

Firstly, the number of 0% balance transfer offers on the market has decreased over the past few months, admin fees have gone up and the length of offers has come down.

Secondly, a new type of credit card has become more popular in recent months – the low rate credit card – which offers a low APR on balance transfers for around two or three years and much lower admin fees. Although these cards have been around for some time, their availability only really started to increase in the last few months of 2008.

This was the second-most popular response with 26% of the votes. It is likely that a year ago, when low rate credit cards weren’t really established, this 26% of responses would have been given to ‘balance transfer to a 0% offer’.

It is also possible that some of these customers have not been lured away from 0% balance transfer offers but instead have opted to apply for low-rate credit cards in place of standard loans for smaller borrowing. A year ago, a good typical APR on a loan would have been around 5.9%. Today this figure stands at around 8.0%. However, in order to get the typical APR on a loan, you normally need to borrow at least £7,000.

They are also a popular choice for consumers who want to have the reassurance that they don’t have to change their credit card every 12 months and pay three admin fees instead of one.

This leads us to what the results may look like in 12 months’ time.

It is feasible that credit cards with ‘long-term low-rate offers’ will really increase in popularity over the coming year. It wouldn’t be shocking to see them become as popular as 0% balance transfer cards as people try to lower the amount they pay in admin fees and rid themselves of the need to switch cards every 12-16 months.

However, 0% balance transfer offers will certainly remain a popular choice for some consumers, especially those that want to sign themselves up for paying off their card debt over the period of a year to 16 months.