Is the "can't have another MBNA card" rule set in stone?

Fingers_Crossed_3

Situation is I have a Tesco and Virgin card both with 3K on. I want to BT them to a LOB card, and stupidly applied for the MBNA fee free one, I hadn't realised Virgin was MBNA (is there a list anywhere to keep me right?). So will MBNA automatically discard my application or should I wait and see?

izools

They may approve you if you've had exemplary account conduct and exemplary credit score, the rule isn't hard and fast, no.

If they knock you back I'd recommend trying for a Barclaycard Simplicity and Halifax Easy Rate (Barclaycard search Equifax and Halifax search Experian so neither will be able to see you've applied for the other and won't affect your application atall).

Good luck & keep us posted!

Paul_Herring

I wasn't aware there was such a rule with MBNA. The only similar sort of thing I've heard about is the 'unable to balance transfer between such cards,' and that's not unique to MBNA.

nzseries1

There is no such rule. I have had two MBNA-run cards at the same time in the past. Good luck!

Fingers_Crossed_3

Thanks for your replies they sound promising, I think I'll wait and see what happens before applying for another. It was just the way I read the credit card info page made me think I couldn't go from MBNA to MBNA

nzseries1

Well, you can't transfer a balance directly from one MBNA card to another MBNA card, but what you can do, is do a money transfer from the new card into your current account, and then use that money to pay off your old card.

Last time I checked, this carried a 4% fee, but was interest free for the same length of time as a normal balance transfer. I presume this is still the case!

izools

You may get approved for the card but you can't balance transfer between MBNA group cards.

Does the LOB offer include Super Balance Transfers (I.e. money transfers into your current account)? As you would need to send the funds "Via" your current account so that MBNA don't know you are using their own money to pay them off.

It's not against the T&C routing the funds via your current account, in case you're worried, but the LOB would need to encompass money transfers to be worthwhile

dylanuk

You can apply and be accepted for more than one MBNA issued credit card - however, they do split credit limits between cards.

E.g. if they think you can afford to borrow £5000, and you've already got £3000 limit with Virgin, then the new MBNA card will only have a £2000 limit.

jamiex

I applied for a second MBNA card and they were going to refuse me, but I suggested taking half of the credit limit off the first card and they were fine with that.

I think they must just have a maximum exposure for each person and they stick to it.

Fingers_Crossed_3

I'm not very savvy with all of this, my Virgin (MBNA) card has 2.9k on it and has a 10k limit, but am I right in saying that I could ask them to reduce the Virgin limit to 3k, which may then allow me to have the MBNA LOB card with the 6K limit I need, but once I have it,I'll not be able to BT the Virgin 2.9k to it anyway, unless I'm able to do this via current account malarkey (How can I find this out?)

Argh pondering what to do now, I'm interested in Izools post about which cards use which credit agency to check. Who do MBNA use? I presume I'll be better off applying for another cc, who uses the opposite agency, assuming that none of the above works out.

nzseries1

Apologies, I missed the bit about LOB in your first post. To know for sure whether the LOB applies to a money transfer to your current account, you would need to read the terms and conditions of the offer, which they would either post to you, or you might be able to find on their website.

If you want to find out about other LOB offers at the moment, you could see this page:
http://www.stoozing.com/lob.php