Credit Card Shuffle Discussion area

I rang MBNA yesterday, to ask them to reduce my interest rate from 34.95% :eek:
They said "Sorry, but we can't drop your interest rate, that's the lowest rate we can do for you"

What a bargain! Worth a try though.

Hi all

I have £14,300 on Egg at 17.9%. I also have a MBNA card with a promotional rate of 0.9% for Balance transers with a 5% transfer fee. This promotion expires in August 09 and it is now 12th February 2009. I have no intention of ever using the MBNA card again and havent for 9 months. I have a £11,000 credit limit on the MBNA card so could transfer up to 90% (£9,900) of the credit limit to the MBNA card. There is currently a zero balance on the MBNA. I am confident of being able to transfer it back to the Egg card by August for whatever prevailing Balance transfer rate Egg may have at the time. In terms of savings is it worth paying the £495.00 fee to put my debt with MBNA till August and then pay a further fee, of probably 2% to put it back on the Egg?

I cant get my head around the maths so would be grateful some assistance!

thanks

Thanks for your responses Sarah. The full picture and my intentions are as follows:

Current balances:

EGG: Credit limit (CL): £15,000; Balance (BL): £14,300; Rate (R): 17.9% and going up to 21% in March.

MBNA: (CL): £10,800 (BL): £0 (R): 0% till Sepember 09 Promo: 0.9% till August 2009 Transfer Fee: 5%

Barclaycard: Credit limit: £4,800: Balance: £1058.35 Rate: 14.9% Promo: 0% till Feb 2010

My intentions are:

Transfer Barclaycard balance, £1058.35. to MBNA
Transfer £4032 from Egg to Barclaycard ((90% of Barclaycard credit limit) at 2.5% fee
Transfer £9,800 from Egg to MBNA at (whopping) 5% Fee

The remaining cash on egg, £469, will be paid by August. I have no idea whether there will be a promo offer from Egg in August, however I know that my current rate on Egg is 17.9 going up to 21% in March so it makes sense to move it. What Im struggling to ascertain is whether the very high 5% fees to move money to MBNA would make this whole excersise cost effective given the short length of time (6 months) of the offer. My mind is in a whirl and I'm struggling to grasp whats best here...! You raised a solid point Sarah and wonder what your opinion is now you have the full picture. PS: MBNA reverts to 23% after the offer. I called them and asked whether this can be reduced and they said they would review in 3 months. Literally translated this means 'not whilst we have you by the b*lls!' Egg will be at 21% by this time so will be a better option.

Help!