Egg Anniversary Offer - the rules have changed

Xenos

This may have been mentioned before, but I've never seen it (a search for 'egg' via the forum search brings up no results, which I'm doubtful of, but anyway).

I took out my Egg credit card in 2003. At the time they were offering 0% on balance transfers and purchases for the first 6 months, and then 0% on balance transfers for 5 months every year after that (on the 'anniversary' of my taking out the card).

So this year I had a balance on a 0% Lloyds Platinum card. I had arranged things carefully so that I could transfer it to my Egg card in my anniversary month before the 0% period on the Lloyds card ran out.

My Egg anniversary month rolled around and I discovered, too late, that they have suddenly started charging a 2.5% fee on balance transfers. It was too late to apply for another card. I had to accept it. They claim I was informed, but if I was, it was buried in a ton of small print.

:money: Martin, if you're reading this, please highlight it on your email. If you had, I would have taken out another card and told Egg to stick it. At least we can help other people to avoid lining Egg's pockets.

Moggles_2

Hi Xenos & welcome to the credit card board!

Thanks for posting. This has been mentioned on the *Best Balance Transfer*sticky and here, although AFAIK not recently.

IMO, uncapped balance transfer fees are best avoided unless the 0% promotion period is protracted as, for instance, the current Capital One deal.

Like you, I made the most of Egg's Anniversary offers when they were fee-free, but I wouldn't touch 'em now with someone else's barge-pole.

Cheers
M

Tr@cker

Egg should not have applied the 2.5% BT on the anniversary offer in my view the original terms for those who signed up at the time should have stood-NO fee on BT's.
As far as im concerned Egg can shove their anniversary up their @rseholes!

Xenos

I agree that balance transfer fees are a complete rip-off. I wouldn't have done it, except I had no choice. I had to pay off the balance or face a dose of 18% APR interest. By the time I realised, I didn't have time to apply for another card.

I think Egg have been extremely under-hand. As Tr@acker said, they should have stuck to their original terms for existing customers.

charlie12

Original thread from March:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=174270

The_Boss

You would have thought that egg would have left the t&cs the same for existing customers and only made the changes for new ones.

thor

but they regretted offering the anniversary transfer and had to think of a way to stop people using it without breaking their promise of these transfers until 2006/7/8 or whenever. So now they still trumpet the anniversary transfers as a huge selling point knowing full well that anyone reading the t&c will never actually apply for one.

Anwen_2

Well, I may be using the anniversary offer in March, as I don't have much chance of getting any other 0% card and even if I could, it would only be a difference of 2% v 2.5% (which might even be the norm by then anyway) fee, on approx £1711 which will be remaining of my 15.9% HSBC card, so that's basically £34.22 versus £42.78, roughly. I will also have another balance on a 4.9% LOB card which I will be snowballing away, so all in all it will save me money. But I will still be somewhat annoyed at having ahd the offer changed after I applied - I will be paying Egg 16.9% interest on my current balance for a couple of months (snowballing at it like hell!) so basically I'm payiing higher interest than I signed up for, which I can live with, but I'll also be paying higher BT fee than was promoted when I applied, which I am quite cross about.

Oh, and the reason Egg doesn't come up in the search is that it only searches for words with more than three letters!

Moggles_2

No wonder you're fed up, Anwen.
Still, March is a long way off and you never know what's round the corner.

Peeps have been predicting the end of low-interest balance transfers for years, but the credit card market is so competitive and it only takes one company to break ranks.

.

.. the reason Egg doesn't come up in the search is that it only searches for words with more than three letters!

Thanks for the tip. Learning how to use the search tool is a skill in itself.

Very best
M

Xenos

Watch out Anwen: Egg are increasing their 2.5% balance transfer fee to 3% in the near future. Can't remember where I read that, but I have. So that's something else to factor into your calculations!

Herb

Be even more careful - they will charge you full interest on the balance transfer fee as well!

But they don't warn you about this when they make the transfer.

see;

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=2967585#post2967585