12 months @ 0% for Abbey Shareholders

WallyMan

I'm not sure if this is widely known but the new Spanish owners of Abbey, Grupo Santander announced in Dec 04 a special credit card deal for their new Abbey UK shareholders. This is taken from the official press release:

The Shareholder Transfer Card. All balances moved to Abbey from other credit or store cards will get 0% p.a. for 12 months from the date the account is opened. The typical rate will be 15.9% APR (variable) on card purchases. There are no fees for withdrawing cash or using credit card cheques.
The Shareholder Flat Rate Card. This offers one low typical rate of 8.7% APR (variable) for everything. This includes all purchases, balance transfers, cash withdrawals and cheques and there are no fees for withdrawing cash or using credit card cheques.
In addition to these benefits, Santander shareholders will also receive all of the standard Abbey Credit Card benefits, including an interest-free period of up to 59 days, no annual fee and online credit card account management.

To apply for one of these credit cards, shareholders should call 0800 015 1566. Lines are open 7.30am-10pm Mon-Fri and 8am-9pm Sat & Sun. This offer is not available through Abbey branches.

The credit cards will be jointly (Grupo Santander and Abbey) branded and issued by MBNA Europe Bank Limited.

I phoned the special number and was told you would be eligible for this offer, even if you only held a single share. Unfortunately it is not possible to buy Abbey shares anymore so you can only take advantage of this offer if you were an Abbey shareholder that has elected to take the Santander share offer.

I hope this information is of some use to some of you!

klondyke

Like getting blood from a stone, tho!

Mr Klondyke applied over phone (as a shareholder) well before Christmas, hoping to hit another imminent 0% deadline on the head with it. Waited and waited, rang them again mid-January and they said it had just been approved - with a silly credit limit. Still, better than nothing, so he said he wanted a balance transfer fairly urgently. Ah, but they hadn't produced a number for the card yet so couldn't do anything at the moment, but if he cared to ring the following Monday, they would have a card number onto which balance transfer could be made. So he rang ... only to be told he hadn't been approved; "there are PROCEDURES", they said. "Er, but, you even told me the credit limit", he said. They wanted to sart questioning him all over again - and seeing that he would never get the BT done in time, he told them to forget it. (Not very wise, as it could still be useful, I admonished, but knew how he felt.)

We paid off the amount intended for BT and a few days later, what should turn up in the post but a "Your card is ready" credit agreement for signature. So he sent if off - and since then has been sent another agreement, The last one was about 2 weeks ago, but still no card. Not really expecting it now - but, if it ever does arrive, they have twice confirmed on the phone that there will be no BT handling charges throughout the 12 months 0%. Now if that really is the case, you should all be clamouring for one, but I'm not holding my breath.

scattycat_3

As MBNA seem to be tightening up after being far toooooo generous.

I would wait for the mailshot from Banco Santander (as promised in last dividend letter ), before applying. The phone number you gave will be an MBNA one, so it is likely little, or no account, will be taken of the fact you are an existing customer of Abbey. Whereas the mailing will be part of a marketing strategy/target by the new owners with certain take-up expectations.
Thus MBNA will have a certain amount of arm being twisted.

Another thread is discussing MBNA attitude change. http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=25095

HTHs Scat

klondyke

I don't have correspondence to hand, but mr klondyke's application was based on mailing sent to shareholders in December, giving phone number which I don't know whether was different from normal, but told to quote' shareholder'. On the first call, they confirmed 12 months and no transfer fee -don't think there were any other MBNA offers of that length at the time. Not a customer of Abbey, merely a shareholder, by inheritance (!) - should have sold them when the going was good:-(

scattycat_3

Klondyke,
Dont sell the shares, they are worth a lot more than Abbey ones were and the up.Dividends should be better. Re CC, I missed the phone number, I was under the impression that the offer would be made "sometime in the future" for that reason I went for A&L 0% for 9 months

MBNA changed the rules in January, for the worse.They are getting stricter on limits and combined limits. I had similar problems getting an A&L card ( also MBNA admin), just after eventual success they cancelled my Abbey card without asking/telling me, quoting lack of use . On the + side, if you have more than one of the MBNA cards you can transfer limits say between them (A&L to Abbey to Virgin to MBNA etc).

klondyke

Scattycat

Thanks for info on shares - haven't really kept track of them since takeover. I'll tell mr k to hold on:-).

Things are moving on the cc - he has received a PIN!!

davidcampbell

re the shares. santander are sitting at around E9.10 (approx £6.20 i believe), prior to the takeover abbey shares were a good bit lower. IMO they will go up much higher over the next few years as the santander boys start to streamline the abbey side of things.

(ive got 300 shares in an employee sharesave which i have an option to buy in 6 years for £3.20 each yippee )

scattycat_3

Hi dc,
I got mine as a N&P account holder in the good old B.Soc. days, much to Mrs Scats annoyance as she had to buy hers when they floated. We all regret not selling them when they were £14 ish, that was before the South American fiasco.:rolleyes:

davidcampbell

yeah that would have been nice.

might just be wishful thinking but after 3 months of santander shares going up and down from between E8.98 and E9.10 then have increased from E9.10 to E9.31 since thursday. this could be the start of the upward trend