Give me the £200! (Egg Money)

Member Name: honey000

Product:	Egg Money
Date:	02/07/09 (102 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great cash back - tough security

Disadvantages: high interest rate

Egg Money is a first and foremost a Mastercard - Egg Bank has changed hands a number of times but is now owned by Citibank.

Application Process
Is actually dead easy - go to the website www.egg.co.uk and click on "apply now". You will be asked to fill in the usual details about yourself and your income. Be honest as lying on an application is a criminal offence! Egg should give you a decision in principle within 60 seconds (unless your financial situation is a little complicated) in which case it will be 24 hours.

One thing that I liked about Egg is that they do not give out crazily high credit limits. I got £6000 initially but my sister who earns a lot less was only given £2,000. The company believes in responsible lending which has to be a good thing in this day and age.

You can have a joint card with a partner / family member if you wish.

Receiving the card
It will be sent by Royal Mail but cannot be used until you activate it (using your online banking facility which is automatically set up for you) so there is no risk of misuse of the card if it goes missing.

Once you do receive it either call Egg or go online to activate the card.

Using the card
AS you would with any other credit card - spend, spend spend!

What is good about the Egg Money card is that you are able to put as much money into the account as you like. You used to receive 5% interest on this - but of course now this has been reduced to 0.1% by the falling interest rates.

So why would you bother paying more in than you owe? Well if you go overseas and are in credit then there are no overseas fees for cash withdrawals which is good news.

Online Banking
The Egg site is very easy to use and you can pay your bills online, view your spending or contact customer services. It is set up for you automatically when you become a customer - you just have to set your security details.

There is a neat feature (for free) called Egg Money Manager through which you can download all your other internet banking details so you can see all your accounts in the same place. This does involve you entering your passwords and usernames so I haven't bothered doing this!

Annual Fee
£0 - which has to be good

Rewards
What is the best thing about this account is the fact that you receive 1% cashback on all spending (up to a maximum of £200 in a 12 month period) this is paid in the anniversary month that you applied for the card. So this February when my bill was quite big I received £200 back (hurrah)

This is only a benefit to you if you pay the bill off in full each month of course!

Additional benefits include extra instant cash back on spending with certain companies - for example I get 2% back if I use the card at a Shell station and 5% back on Figleaves.

Interest rates
0.1% on positive balances sadly reduced from 5%.
16.9% on negative balances (so pay off every month in full!!!!)
The interest free period is approx (up to) 55 days which is not bad!

Security
Egg have one of the most vigilant security systems I have ever seen with a credit card. If there is any unusual spending on your account then they will alert the card and contact you by phone to discuss it. They stopped a fraudster putting a total of £10,000 on my mums cards using this method so it must work!

The only problem is that you are called by an automated system which asks you to enter your personal details - being a cynic I am always wary of this so call customer service myself. I have mentioned this to them and said - don't you think it is unwise to ask for details when YOU called ME? But no changes ..........yet!

Customer services
Are friendly and helpful - their email service is slow but I recommend ringing them up!

Overall - a great card with good extras!

Summary: A good reward card