Credi card cheques

redkelly

Hi All

Can someone help me with a question i currently have a balance on my credit card and mbna have sent me some credit card cheque's at 0% till april 2009.

If I use the cheque to pay off the balance of another credit card.
Will mbna then charge me the cash intrest rate from april 2009 on the balance t/f or will it be at the normal rate?

Balance on Mbna is £6000 on another card is £3500 thought it might make sence to just use one card and then will not have to pay intrest on the £3500 till april 2009.

Thank you

NickX

Well I think the balance on the transferred balance will just go to the standard purchases variable rate from April 2009 - although there is no predicting what that could be. Recently there have been reports of MBNA hiking rates up to around 34.9% so you would want to make plans to clear the balance in full prior to that date.

However, I think if you already have £6k on the MBNA card, then it could be a bad move to transfer because all the future payments that you make during the promotional period will come off the transferred balance leaving that £6000 accruing interest and not decreasing at all.

You would be far better getting a separate 0% Balance Transfer card and moving as much as you can to that.

Martin always advises not to mix and match purchases and balance transfer cards for this precise reason.

redkelly

I know getting a 0% balance t/f card would be best but applied to Egg and Barclay card and they both said no.
Think because I have a lot outstanding on my other cards.
It's just If i don't pay intrest on this £3500 I will be able to clear that before April and then plug away at the rest of the balance.

YorkshireBoy

Can you shift the £6K off MBNA, and then bring everything back to MBNA at 0% until next year.

If you haven't got enough capacity on your own cards, maybe family could temporarily help out?

As NickX says though, have a plan in place for next April's (likely?) rate hike.

BTW, in my experience you won't have to use the cheques. The same offer will be available for BT's and SBT's (payment directly to your current account). Check your online secure area, or give customer services a call.