0% interest credit card from Virgin (Virgin Mastercard)

Member Name: ukboltonboy

Product:	Virgin Mastercard
Date:	28/08/09 (10 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: online access clear, 0% rate of interest for 16 months

Disadvantages: pressure sales when registering card, new purchases interest remains until whole balance paid off

I saw an advert for the 16 months interest free credit card from Virgin so enquired online. After reading the small print to make sure there wasn't a sting in the tail of the offer, I went ahead and ordered the card. It was simple!

I received the card and online banking details shortly afterwards and logged onto the website with no problems. When you receive the card, you need to register it for security purposes by ringing a phone number. When I rang there were quite high pressure sales in terms of trying to persuade me that I require credit card protection or loss of personal details insurance but I was quite firm that I didn't want the products so after a while he gave up!

The online credit card system is easy to use and understand. It was easy to do a balance transfer to gain the 16 months interest free offer although there was the usual 2.98% handling fee type charge but compared to interest payments on other credit cards this will save a lot of money in the long-run. You still have to make minimum payments each month but these are very small compared to the balance. A note of caution that if you miss a minimum payment, then the 0% interest offer ceases to exist so you would pay the full rate (although I think this is a similar condition on other balance transfer credit cards). Overall, I am very pleased with the product in terms of logging on, making a balance transfer and also paying off money online. One thing I haven't done is spent money on it but as it is backed by MBNA I assume there would be no problems with this.

Also, from reading the small print - if you actually use your card for purchase this would incur a % interest rate which is as expected. However, you would then have to pay off the whole balance (that is currently charged art 0%) before you could pay off your new purchase balance - so bascially you would pay interest on that new purchase right up until you could manage to pay the whole credit card off!! Beware of that!!

Summary: Good rate of interest but as with anything else, read the small print