mbna 0% balance transfer

loismustdie

hi guys, lookin for a bit of advice, from someone who's a stranger to the world of finance and business
i hav an mbna gold card, have had for some time, at the moment we owe less than a hundred on it which we'll be payin back this week.
iv received a couple of letters from mbna, and it's all over they'r website advertisin their offer of 0% apr on all money and balance transfers made from your account before october, to be paid back by march 2010.
now, come comes in the fact that im really not in tune with the world of banks and figures so exuse me for my ignorance, but can someone please advise me, are they tellin me that should i wish to transfer an amount of money, eg, 2 thousand - to my current account in aib, that so long as i pay that money back to them my next march i pay no interest and only the 2 thou i borrow?
now i understand il hav to pay back certain amount each month and persume that should i fail to pay back amount in full by march that the interest will rise to 100% or somethin equally high but i hav no doubt that i can pay at least 800 a month so will be able to cover the minimum payment and hav full amount paid in said time.

basically im lookin to know if this is too good to be true or if anyone else has experience with this offer, thanks in advance for your time

BuffyBot

No - a balance transfer is when you have a balance with another credit card (AIB, Halifax etc) and then transfer that balance over to MBNA. MBNA will then give you a 0% rate on that balance for the advertised period of time.

Basically, it's an incentive to get people to transfer their credit card balances from other banks to MBNA

loismustdie

oh ok, sorry i think i worded it wrong, the letter i got did talk about balance transfers a lot but also said you could transfer money to your current account to "bulk it up and spend the money as you wish" it put it but im still not sure if it's too good to be true, ive tried ringin them and been on hold a few times today but hav a toddler runnin around and ya know the way it is holdin on lines like that from mobiles.

so i take it the money will go froom my mbna card to give me money in the bank which i spend and then owe that money to mbna? but what's in it for mbna if there is no interest til march2010, are they just hopin than people will fail to pay back on time and then they'l charge them massive interest rates?

BuffyBot

Maybe they've waived their cash advance fee (which is a completely different thing from a balance transfer), but that seems unlikely, and I doubt they'd be so unclear on their literature.

Without knowing the exact offer, it's hard to speculate.

daithijjj

I used to get all kinds of 'incentives' down the years with my platinum credit card from lloyds tsb. They were basically giving me the same offer that you seem to getting but it was slightly different. They sent me credit card cheques (x2). They could be used to do anything with as long as they did not exceed the limit obviously. They specifically said i could use them to pay anything from a plumber bill to repairs on the car or whatever.

Its blatantly a tactic to tie you down to mbna because i ran my account with a zero balance and you are not 'spending enough' too . The cheques were dated and could only be used within 4/5 weeks of receiving. Sounds similar to that offer you are talking about but without the cheques and available to all supposedly if its on their site. It was also 0% for 6 months on the total of both cheques if used.

rainbowtrout

loismustdie wrote: »

oh ok, sorry i think i worded it wrong, the letter i got did talk about balance transfers a lot but also said you could transfer money to your current account to "bulk it up and spend the money as you wish" it put it but im still not sure if it's too good to be true, ive tried ringin them and been on hold a few times today but hav a toddler runnin around and ya know the way it is holdin on lines like that from mobiles.

so i take it the money will go froom my mbna card to give me money in the bank which i spend and then owe that money to mbna? but what's in it for mbna if there is no interest til march2010, are they just hopin than people will fail to pay back on time and then they'l charge them massive interest rates?

Well you pretty much have it there in a nutshell. I got a platinum card with them about 6 months ago. I did a balance transfer from another card and I transferred money from the MBNA card to my bank account as well to pay off a loan. There were no charges and it's 0% for 10 months, so it sounds like the same kind of set up as the gold card. You do have to pay back the minimum balance (€25) each month, but if you don't have the money taken out on the 0% paid back in the time allowed the interest is then charged on the whole amount, not on the remaining balance. Also if you pay for anything else with that card in the 0% time frame, it's charged interest as normal and keeps building up as the payments you make go towards the balance with the lowest interest rate.

So if you can pay off the balance in the time frame allowed, you won't get charged anything, but if you can't MBNA make a lot of money from the interest, which is what they're hoping I suppose. The whole 'transfer money to your bank account' is all too easy to do. I suppose it would be easy for people to keep transferring money because there is no interest on it and then run up a large bill that they don't get fully paid off in the 0% interest time frame.

I got the card because I had to pay for college online with my credit card and the money for college was due to come through in a lump sum to me a couple of months later, so I was never in danger of not being able to pay it off. So I'm using the card as an interest free loan, it's due to be paid off this month, I don't take the card anywhere with me so I can't use it.

CSC

MBNA do allow you to put money into your bank account at the same promotional rate as doing balance transfer. I have done this with them on a number of occasions through the years.