Free Money (0% For 6 months) (Egg Card)

Member Name: pottmar

Product:	Egg Card
Date:	22/02/01 (276 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Everything on line, easy and quick to use

Disadvantages: Charges if you want to have paper statement or pay by cheque

******* UPDATED AS THE INTEREST FREE OFFER HAS BEEN EXTENDED *******

I tend to have a balance on my credit card at the end of the month, so I am always on the lookout for a good deal on balance transfers and purchases. I am also fed up with having to handle lots of paper statements, I already do most of my shopping on line and I do my banking on line, so why not have an online credit card.

I already have a loan from Egg and was very happy with the no fuss on line application process, so I thought I would take a look at their website and I was very surprised, but delighted to find that their credit card was on offer at 0% on balance transfers for 6 months (as long as you open your account before 31/05/01 and transfer balances before 31/07/01). The normal rate for other purchases is just 11.9%, which is lower than my other credit cards.

I applied for the card on the website, it took about 10 minutes to answer all the questions and I got an immediate decision at the end of the process to say I had been accepted.

You also get 1% cash back for all your purchases and 2% cash back on all purchases from online transactions at Egg shop retailers. All cash back is shown on your statement and credited to your account in September, a nice early Christmas present.

Of course there is no annual fee for this credit card, which is good, I don’t see why we should have to pay an annual fee for the pleasure of being charged interest on our outstanding balance.

You get free purchase protection for items up to £1000 for up to 30 days so if an item is lost, stolen or damaged it is covered.

I received my card within 7 days of my application being approved, when they arrived I had to login to the accounts area on the egg website and activate my cards, this only has to be done once. Next time you login you are taken to your accounts page.

On the your account screen you get a consolidated view of all your egg ac
counts, Egg also provide loans, mortgages, savings and investments. If you have any of these other accounts the balance is all available on this handy screen.

On this screen you also have a number of options, the about you section is where you can change your address, contact details and personal details.

The Payments Centre allows you to transfer your balances, if you select the egg card option then you can click on balance transfer, type in the number of the card you want to pay and the amount and that is it they will handle the payment for you. It tells you that the transfer may take up to 7 days, but all the balances I transferred were undertaken in about 4 days.

The maintain you accounts section lets you perform certain actions on your account, if you select your egg card you can do the following, View your Statement, View your recent transactions, Change your regular payments, Change your bank details, Request a new credit limit, and Request a new PIN. All of these actions can be completed on line.

The View your statements section is fairly self descriptive, with the egg card you do not get a statement in the post, you can request one but it will cost you £2 so you click on the view statement option to look at the latest statement.

There is also an area where you can apply for a new account (As mentioned earlier).

The last section is so you can send a secure email to Egg customer services, this is very handy as it means you can send emails that cannot be intercepted on the general Internet.

When you open you account you are asked to set-up a direct debit you get two choices, they are to pay the full balance or the minimum payment.

As for making additional payments, this account is designed to be electronic, you can pay by cheque but you will be charged £2 per transaction, the best way to make additional payments is to set-up a BACS transfer from your current account. Most banks wil
l let you do this nowadays, I have a Nationwide Flex Account and have set this up as a bill payment so I can go to any nationwide cash machine, or login to my online banking system and pay extra money to my egg card.

All in all for me this account is ideal I can carry out all of my transactions on line, there is no paper work so it saves the environment (And my time), the minimum payments are all handled by direct debit and I can make extra payments through my bank any time I like. And best of all 0% Interest on my balance transfers for 6 months. I recommend you give them a try.

Summary: