Card transfer

gkw1970

Hi all

my first posting here.

I have an MBNA (Liverpool fc) credit card. The balance is roughly £2000 on it. I have not used the card for quite some time, but I am not in a position to pay off the balance in full.

Is it worth transferring to a different card? Which card is best.....and finally do I just apply for a card then pay the amount owed to MBNA? It is time to start sorting my finances out...

Thanks for any input.

CannyJock

gkw1970 wrote: »

Hi all

my first posting here.

I have an MBNA (Liverpool fc) credit card. The balance is roughly £2000 on it. I have not used the card for quite some time, but I am not in a position to pay off the balance in full.

Is it worth transferring to a different card? Which card is best.....and finally do I just apply for a card then pay the amount owed to MBNA? It is time to start sorting my finances out...

Thanks for any input.

If you're able to get one and it's lower APR, or even better 0% for a period of time then it's definitely worth it.

You apply for the new card (not another MBNA card because you can't do a transfer from one MBNA to another - see www.stoozing.com/cards for a full list of who is behind each of the cards)

There's also a list of the cards with the longest 0% period on the same site.

When you get the new card, you normally need to call to activate it (and they'll try and sell you payment protection insurance but just point blank refuse it).

During that phone call you want to do a few things:
1. confirm that your balance transfer is at 0%
2. confirm the fee for the balance transfer (should be about 3%) and confirm that interest will not be charged on this fee and that this fee will be paid by the first minimum payment
3. confirm the exact date that the 0% period will be until
4. request the balance transfer to the old card - you'll need your old card there to give them the details. You might need to transfer a bit more than the actual balance to cover residual interest on your old card, I'd always recommend doing this.
5. ask them to set up a direct debit from your current account to pay the minimum from the new card. You can always make over-payments yourself, but doing this ensures that you don't need to post about how to reclaim £12 charges

Once your old card is clear, or has a slight over-payment, call them, ask them to cancel the card and send you a refund of the overpayment - if they can make the payment direct into your current account then even better.

It's suprisingly simple, once you've done it once you'll be comfortable doing it when the 0% period on the new card is nearly up.