MBNA the big credit boys (MBNA)

Member Name: scrozzer

Product:	MBNA
Date:	31/03/02 (138 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: International use

Disadvantages: High APR rate

You can't get away from MBNA nowadays. My wife has a couple of bank credit cards whose account handling has now been passed to MBNA.

It used to be difficult to get hold of one of these cards years ago, nowadays you can find them affiliating with RSPCA to Formula 1 teams to Universities.

Their rates have been unchanged for years, usually around the 17.9% rate with sometimes a reduced transfer rate for 6 months.

They sometimes send out credit cheques which are useful, but I've found that everywhere more or less takes credit cards now.

What I am concerned about is the fact they want to keep putting my credit limit up. I can now buy a new car on the card I got. Totally unthinkable years ago. The limit is approximately 40% of my annual salary, and in my opinion leads people to get themselves badly into debt. Not that I am of course.

There's no website which is surprising, but I've found that using internationally, they are very good. They get cleared very quickly, quicker than my wife's cards sometimes.

If you have a balance with these guys though, it's best to transfer to another low rate card (see Natwest or Morgan Dean Stanley)

Overall, not bad, but only any good if you pay off in full each month. They used to do a payment holiday where you didn't have to pay a payment for one month a year. Not sure if they do this still.

Summary: