MBNA 2% (£50 max) balance transfer fee warning.

grumbler

I have Conran card. Just received a letter from MBNA regarding changes to T&C from 1 May:

We are changing the … sentence … of terms and conditions from ‘we may charge a handling fee for balance transfers’ to ‘we will charge a handling fee for balance transfers’.

The information on their website for Conran CC is still ‘2% handling fee (min.£2, max.£35) on: credit card cheques and some balance transfers’.

Looks like a general trend of MBNA to apply balance transfer fee even on transfers requested on application.
Be carefull if you are planning 0% balance transfer to MBNA after 1 May!

Afahmaep

I've had 2 MBNA AOL credit cards for the last 2 years, 1 Mastercard and 1 Visa. By careful manipulation and use using BTs I've not paid my annual AOL subscription for the last 2 years but acquired enough points to do so a saving of about £320. I have paid some interest about £80 altogether.
I recently applied for an Abbey Card also issued by MBNA and upon not receiving any written correspondence rang up to enquire about its progress.
The problem was my credit limit of £9600 which they would not increase.
After some discussion they agreed to grant me my new Abbey card and with 0% for 9 months but I had to lower the limit on the other 2 cards.
So I agreed a limit of £5500 on the Abbey card because I've got £2000 on a £3100 limit on the AOL Visa at 0% which expires 31/07/05 which leaves a £1000 limit on the AOL Mastercard which is empty.
I'd already instigated two £2500 BTs onto the new Abbey card on the online application without charge so now I think I'll wait until December when the 0% expires on the Abbey card to decide what to do next.

niff_noff

Also note that they will only let you balance transfer upto 95% of the available credit on your card (ie 95% of the credit limit assuming you have no other spending already on the card). I tried to BT £9950 of the £10k limit on my new Virgin CC but recieved a call informing me that the maximum allowed was £9500 (95%)

colinw

They are so inconsistant. A guy from Virgin offered me a 100% SBT 10 days ago.

grumbler

colinw wrote:

They are so inconsistant. A guy from Virgin offered me a 100% SBT 10 days ago.

1) The Virgin card is a unique (?) one from MBNA’s pack that offers fee-free balance transfers during introductory period (not only on application).
2) I wrote about after 1 May, not now.

Former_MSE_Dan

We have been looking into this, and the Balance Transfer article has been updated (although we are still waiting for certain confirmations concerning the A&L card)