Background: Reactions with halo nuclei from deformed regions exhibit important deviations from the inert core + valence picture. Structure and reaction formalisms have recently been extended or adapted to explore the possibility of exciting the underlying core. Purpose: We will study up to what extent transfer reactions involving halo nuclei 11 Be and 17 C can be reproduced with two different models that have previously shown a good success reproducing the role of the core in light halo nuclei. Methods: We focus on the structure of 11 Be and 17 C with two core + valence models: Nilsson and a semimicroscopic particle-rotor model using antisymmetrized molecular dynamic calculations of the cores. These models are later used to study 16 C(d, p) 17 C and 11 Be(p, d ) 10 Be transfer reactions within the adiabatic distorted wave approximation. Results are compared with three different experimental data sets. Results: A good reproduction of both the structure and transfer reactions of 11 Be and 17 C is found. The Nilsson model provides an overall better agreement for the spectrum and reactions involving 17 C while the semimicroscopic model is more adequate for 11 Be, as expected, since the 17 C core is closer to an ideal rotor. Conclusions: Both models show promising results for the study of transfer reactions with halo nuclei. We expect that including microscopic information in the Nilsson model, following the spirit of the semimicroscopic model, can provide a useful, yet simple framework for studying newly discovered halo nuclei.