thoughts on the Marks and Spencer credit card

Deals_2

as we need to apply for a 0% for purchases card on self employed basis. thanks in advance.

nzseries1

I love it. They give you reward points and 0% on purchases for 10 months. I get a free lunch from M&S once a month or so and I love it :-)

They have full online servicing which is good, or you can pay instore and have your account credited the next day.

FireBox

I'm looking at getting an M&S card - what kind of credit (in terms of amount relative to other providers) do they give? 1/4 of salary? I had a Halifax One card about 24 months ago and surprised me with an £11k limit.

My finances have improved since, will this limit increase with M&S?

nzseries1

Out of all the cards I have (4 of them), my limit with M&S is by far the lowest. The limit is 4% of my salary.

This compares to Halifax and Virgin who gave me limits of 20% of my salary, and Barclaycard who gave me 15%.

FireBox

4%?! Thanks for the info - thats plain ridiculous! It's just not competitive, I guess they grab people with the 10 months figure.

I just got off to one of their advisors, she said the max was currently £15k, I'd be happy with £11k again, but 4% is a joke. I'd just rip up the contract if they continued with the process. I presume there's no negative impact on credit rating if one applies for a card, gets credit, but refuses halfway through opening the account?

Thanks again,

FireBox

nzseries1

FireBox wrote: »

I just got off to one of their advisors, she said the max was currently £15k, I'd be happy with £11k again, but 4% is a joke. I'd just rip up the contract if they continued with the process. I presume there's no negative impact on credit rating if one applies for a card, gets credit, but refuses halfway through opening the account?

Well, I wanted it as a 0% purchases "slow stoozing" card so the low limit was actually good for me.

I can't say if everyone would get 4% or not, providers often have trouble verifying my address so that might have been the reason why I in particular got a low limit. Perhaps also because it was the 3rd of 4 cards I took out, and they didn't like my available credit on my other cards.

If you apply, then they accept you, then you refuse to continue with the application, then you'll still have a credit check on your file. You'd have that credit check whether you completed the process or not, so it wouldn't matter either way if you went ahead with it or not.

Any

Hi Firebox,
I also have a M&S card, I applied for mine in October (pls realise that lending is now tighter due to banks finally realising that they cannot lend to anyone) and I was given £5.5k limit, which is 25% of my salary.

nzseries1

Thanks for that Any, looks like they're not stingy to everybody if it helps, I got mine in October also.