A&L Overdraft Limit

tparkin

Has anyone out there managed to get an increased overdraft on an A&L Premier Direct Account without fulfilling all of their criteria?

We are hoping to transfer our HSBC current account to A&L to take advantage of their 12mth 0% overdraft facility, in an effort to get debt free (except the mortgage) by the end of this year.

Unfortunately, we need a £2,500 overdraft facility to start with, as we had slowly built up to this level over the course of last year with HSBC.

The problem we have is that the account we wish to transfer has not been in credit since September 2005, and one of A&L's requirements is that the account was in credit for at least 2 days in one of the previous 3 months.

When I applied to switch our account I wrote a covering letter explaining what we are doing and even enclosed a spreadsheet showing all of the expected account transactions and the (reducing) size of the overdraft over the whole year (we intend to use this account solely for paying bills).

I spoke with A&L today, and they told me that they would have to refer the matter to their underwriters, who are usually very strict. I've told them that without the increased overdraft facility I cannot switch my HSBC account, but I don't know if this will cut much ice with them. I seem to have a reasonably good credit rating (about 575 I think) so I might be lucky.

Any ideas on things we can tell them that might pursuade them to decide in our favour? I have already suggested that the o/d limit could be stepped down as we pay it off.

Ultimately, it won't be a disaster if they say no, but we will then have to stick with HSBC (at least until we get the o/d down a bit) and pay their extortionate rate of interest.

bargains83

If you can't get the overdraft with A&L have you thought about applying for an EGG credit card? (assuming you don't already have one). If they give you a card and the limit is big enough they allow free balance transfers into your current account, thus paying off your HSBC overdraft.

You will then get 6 months (maybe a little longer) interest free on the transfereed balance. Obviously not as good as the 12 months offered by A&L but once you've paid off the HSBC balance with the Egg card you would then meet the criteria to get the 'matched' overdraft with A&L and then pay off the Egg Card before the interest becomes payable.