More than 1 MNBA card ?

littledisey

I am looking for some advice on whether I would be likely to get a second MNBA card.

At the moment I a Virgin Amex / MNBA Card which is "closed" ie I froze the rate at 14% when they were hiking the interest to something like 20%. (£10K) When its paid off the card gets closed.

I also have an Egg Card, a Santander Card and my HSBC card connected to my current account.

The egg and santander were balance transfer cards and in both cases the 0% has just finished. I have £5K on the Santander and £2K on the Egg

My recent credit report shows me as 936 i.e. good credit history. I used to have excellent but I guess as I have 4 cards open that has affected the score.

Never defaulted or made any late payments at all - ever. My report says I am using 59% of my available credit.

What I want to do is get a new card with either life of balance interest rate or 0% for as long as poss and then depending on the credit limit either pay off and close the Virgin (if by some miracle I could get £10K. If a lower amount then pay off and close the Egg and or/Santander.

Is it worth me applying for another MNBA card or would they reject me as I already have a card with them and the fact its "closed".

I know you can't transfer from MBNA to MBNA but I could transfer to my current account and then pay it off.

Any advice gratefully received

Thanks

Disey

redpete

I managed to get Virgin card when I already had an active MBNA card. You can't transfer balances between them though.

My recent credit report shows me as 936 i.e. good credit history. I used to have excellent but I guess as I have 4 cards open that has affected the score.

It won't be just the number of cards but could be affected by the total amount of available credit, and possibly the total amount of outstanding debt.

Are you sure that getting (and using) more credit is a good idea? Your previous use of 0% BTs looks like you haven't paid these off but built up more debt (apologies if I'm wrong).

littledisey

No apology necessary Redpete, you are correct.

In the last 3 and half years since my son was born my hubby has not worked, doing the Daddy Day Care thing so it has been unfortunately necessary to subsidise our living on the cards !

Happily he starts work in Mid Sept as the child is off to school - hurrah !

So our finances will improve, ok we wont necessarily be able to make massive inroads into the cards, probably only still pay just about minimum payments, but we wont be using the cards anymore and that is the main thing. So what I want to do is make sure what I do pay off is actually paying the debt not all the interest !

I have just whacked £12K off the cards due to a small inheritance my hubby received so that has had a positive effect on my credit scores and I am now showing as excellent on both Experian and Equifax so hopefully that will enable me to get a good credit limit and totally pay off and close at least one of the cards.

Eydon

I currently have Virgin and Amazon cards (both MBNA) with a combined credit limit in excess of 20k. I got an offer the other day for a £40 credit to my BT bill if I took out the BT credit card (also issued by MBNA). I applied (because I like free money) and got a call the same day from a very nice MBNA underwriter. After a brief chat we agreed to reduce the limits on the Virgin and Amazon cards so that he could approve my BT card.

So yes, you can have more than one MBNA card - as long as MBNA are comfortable with the total credit across all of them.

EDIT: Have you seen the latest offering from MBNA. It offers 1.9% on balance transfers and money transfers for 12 months and no handling fee. Might be what you need.