Paying over £500 per interest - help!

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt

I really don't think shuffling is the answer here. You do have spare credit to play with but perhaps it is time to wage war against mbna and throw your heart and soul into just paying it off. With such high interest each month, by the time you have cleared enough space off a cheaper card to move the other debt to, the interest gained on just your egg and MBNA plus the balance transfer fee will negate any benefit really. If you had a cheap, lower interest empty card available and ready then great but in this situation you would have to clear a lot of debt before moving any other to it or split it between multiple cards and pay several transfer fees.

You are paying around £450 pcm in interest for just your egg and mbna combined. You can't afford to have any months where you aren't paying huge chunks off.

Also you're not guaranteed a great life of balance transfer rate even if you did clear one of your cheaper cards. As others have said, cc companies are likely to reduce your credit limit as you pay it off.

I would try calling MBNA and say you have been offered a reasonable life of balance transfer by another of your cards, is there anything they could do with their interest rate to help you out that would make it feasible to stay. Or be honest & just say, their interest rate is crippling you. I know lots of people that have reduced their interest for say 12months just by asking. No harm done and it saves having to pay around £200 for a balance transfer fee if they say agree to cheaper terms!

stevesmithanon

I've just sent my egg card a secure message saying this. Let's see what happens! Are they likely to do a credit search on me without my say so?

I notice that the APR on my egg card is about 26.9% rather than the typical 16.7% that two thirds of your customers get. With this in mind, I am considering a balance transfer away (and also the low interest balance transfer rates available elsewhere).

May I ask why my rate is so high?

Thank you.

Also, to keep my credit score good, what is the maximum number of credit searchers are you allowed per month or per period? I'm thinking if egg do a search and I apply for a credit card somewhere, it might go against me.

Tixy

Hi Steve. Well it always worth asking - in fact do remember to tell us if it works - I have an egg card and might try something similar.

Its usually recommended to have no more than 3 searches in a 6month period.

stevesmithanon

I just phoned my first direct bank and asked if they could reinstate the £7K credit limit on my credit card. They said yes! So that means I have a little bit more space with which to do some transferring around. The balance on that card is zero. However, if I did a balance transfer to that card, the interest rate would be 19.9%. It is not ideal, but it would free up space on another card and allow me to start transferring the other balances around. What do you think? Good idea?