Balance Transfer Fees

MSE_Martin

WARNING: MBNA, VIRGIN, A&L, ABBEY and LLOYDS TSB CREDIT CARDHOLDERS:

Existing customers of MBNA (which also manages all the above cards bar Lloyds) who do a balance transfer to the card, apart from when they first get it, pay a fee of 2% (Min £2 Max £35) this is being increased to a max of £50 on 1 November for the majority of customers. This is start of a worrying trend to charge fees for BTs, it looks like Lloyds will be introducing an existing customer balance transfer fee from November 1.

To discuss this or report others click reply

zcaprd7

Hmm - I'm wondering if, as result, they will offer better transfer deals for existing customers?


The most recent deal I did was at 0% APR for 6 months - normally their best previous would be, say,  2.9% APR for 6 months.

However, if your are doing a transfer of £5000 for 6 months, the £50 fee really equates to a 2% APR for the life of the deal?


So figure out how much the charge will be in APR terms and negotiate as before...

sly_dog_jonah

I had a change of T&C's come through on my LloydsTSB Platinum card the other day. As you say Martin they will charge 2% for Balance Transfers, but according to my letter this is uncapped (unlike MBNA's £35/50)! Pretty sure there is a minimum charge as well, but this is less important of course.

Hooligan_3

I nearly fell for this one. What I do is to apply for credit cards, then transfer the maximum credit limit to MBNA who allow me to draw this money as a transfer to my building society account, which I then use to buy Premium Bonds, the idea being that all winnings are of course mine, and when the interest free period expires, I simply move it to another card, or cards if they won't give me enough. Anyway, having made the transfer to MBNA last time I noticed the 2% or £35 so I called them up. They said it was only for tranfers made on line, and if I had called them they would have done it for free, when I explained this this was very misleading they agreed to waive the charge. Incidentally I now hold £23000.00 of Premium Bonds, all funded for free by mug banks.....Ha Ha. It takes a little bit of organiation, but is well worth it.
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

zcaprd7

I'm not sure the average yield of premium bonds is better than a good savings account?

I guess you get the added fun of a free lottery for a big prize?

johnllew

Incidentally I now hold £23000.00 of Premium Bonds, all funded for free by mug banks.

Incidentally, have you won anything?

smartsaver

I'm not sure the average yield of premium bonds is better than a good savings account?

I held £30.000 of stoozed money for 6 months or so but the return was quite a lot less than the highest e-saver >:(.  Most I won in a month was £100.00, some months nothing and a couple of £50.00.

All very nice but I get much more in Cahoot 5.65%... In fact ING at 5% would beat the returns hands down.  8)

Maybe you will be luckier..

zcaprd7

As I suspected...

Global_Elephant

It's not only balance transfers where MBNA catch you with these charges. I was stupid enough to write out a cheque on my MBNA card account and they charged me £35 for the privilege of doing that. MBNA send blank cheques with every statement hoping that people will fall into the trap!

A1B

I thought it was time to add a few lines of my experience with the balance transfer saving scheme. I read about this earlier this year and took out a MINT card each for my wife and I. Between us we had a credit limit of £12,000 and advantage with MINT was that you could write yourself a personal cheque for the credit limit. This we did and paid into an EGG savings account. Each month we simply paid the minumum amount requested by MINT and then wrote another cheque back to the savings account. 2 months before the 6 month 0% was up we applied for an ABBEY visa card each (9 months 0%). Both accepted even having managed debt with MINT and a bonus - increased credit limit. My dilema was how to move the money to ABBEY without removing the money from EGG (and also ABBEY charge for personal cheques). Solution, ABBEY did a free balance transfer which had to be done on signing paperwork and not to another MBNA account. They do this transfer upto 95% of credit limit. Next step when all this had taken place was to phone MINT (using alternative tel numbers - see Martin's tip) and cancel the card. Bonus here is because the MINT card is in credit MINT now send you a cheque for the balance. Double bonus is that original money is still in EGG earning interest. Final bonus is that MBNA have a minimum payment of £5 per month rather than a % so have now set up a standing order for the next 8 months. Only job now is to check the statement each month to see it is all working.

Hope this helps someone and many thanks to others because reading a review like this enabled me and my wife to earn nearly an extra £1000 a year in interest for doing very little!!!

smartsaver

Have to date earnt interest/premium bonds £1527.00 ;D
Hope to earn more next month  ::) ::)