mbna billpay questions

How do you come up with 55 days?

Anyone been able to add a PenFed checking or savings account of late? I tried adding my PenFed checking account but on the screen where I enter the account number and ZIP code, no matter what I type, it says that that the format of the account number and/or ZIP is incorrect. Is this backdoor now closed?

I was even trying to add my Bank of Omaha (FNBO), IndyMac, and SECU accounts, but kept getting the same error with all.

g10ny said: You can add a PenFed card, and the transfer to checking is a piece of cake.Yeah I was thinking of doing that, but I vaguely recall reading about PenFed freaking out and freezing a transfer due to "suspicion of money laundering" when someone moved a large amount with this method. Maybe I'm confusing Penfed with another bank.

I just freed up a 50K mbna billpay card (payed off a AOR) so I'll be moving quite a large amount, and don't want to take any risks.

djspray said: jlgrandam said: How do you come up with 55 days?
Bill is paid (charged) mid-cycle, then you don't have to pay bill until due date. Depending on when your cycle ends, this can be 55 days of floating debt.Why wait until "mid cycle" instead of the day the cycle begins?

akhan7 said: Are you guys using all old MBNA cards that are now FIA? I had the MBNA visa signature that became branded as a BoA card. When my first 2 payments posted, they show up as a "bank transaction" instead of "purchase" (based on the icon that shows up next to each transaction).
Will I be safe on the grace period with a bank-transaction?I've used an old MBNA turned BoA and old MBNA now FIA. Bill Pay were purchases on both. The BoA card showed the bank transaction icon online too, but all bill pay were under purchases and adjustment on my statement.

Dumb question... Is the only way to use MBNA billpay is to have an old MBNA credit card? i.e. it's not available to new bofA card holders? My understanding is that they will gradually be phasing out the old MBNA billpay in favor of BofA's billpay which is entirely different... is that correct?

Not sure if this situation will apply to anyone, but if it does, this is a pretty sweet tip.

You can use AU status on someone else's MBNA billpay card to get MBNA billpay on your own cards.

None of my FIA/BofA cards predate the merger, so I had always assumed they were ineligible for Billpay Choice. However, my wife has MBNA billpay on her Fido card, and I'm an authorized user on that card. I recently created my own login profile for the Fido. (I had been sharing my wife's login.) Then, I added my 2007 Schwab card to the new Fido profile, and low-and-behold...now the Schwab card has MBNA billpay! Sweetness.

I have a Schwab card and a BofA card that both pre-date the merger and both have MBNA billpay. I was on the phone with a BofA rep last night asking to move available credit from the Scwab card to the BofA one. Interestingly he mentioned that because of their agreements with Schwab (and Merrill) that normally he wouldn't be allowed to bring up the fact that Schwab and Merrill cards are serviced by BofA. Since I brought it up first, he was allowed to talk about it and could subsequently move the available credit between the two cards. It made me think that the agreements that MBNA had with the brokerage houses like Schwab were quite powerful and still must be maintained by BofA. This could be why MBNA billpay survives on the FIA site and why AU's on the brokerage cards can get to the billpay system. Just speculating.

Just an FYI (this may have already been addressed somewhere in this giant thread).

Signing up for BoA Checking ELIMINATES "BillPay Choice". It replaces it with a standard checking account bill pay that doesn't offer the ability to pay off other credit cards as purchases.

Very disappointing -- there goes my 30-day free float. The CSR I talked with today said the only way to re-enable the service would be to delete my checking account from their online system. I think the service might be more valuable to me than BoA's network of ATMs for the relatively rare cash withdrawals I need.

Anyone else encounter this? Any way around it?

I had an MBNA card with billpay choice that became a BofA card. I also signed up for BofA checking account and now I have an option when I click on billpay to go to either BofA billpay or the old MBNA billpay choice.

kvkeee said: Any suggestions on how I can take advantage of this feature..?
Most banks don't have a setup where you can billpay into a deposit account. You need an financial institution which is on the payee list, and you can type an account number, and it will somehow get into that deposit account. There's not a lot A few instances have been named earlier in this mega-thread. But it has a problem, because repeated use tends to tick off someone (either MBNA or the depository institution) after a while, and there's the risk of billpay being shutdown, or the bank account being shut down.
Any way to achieve this even if your bank is not listed in the payee list?
nope, they absolutely have to be on the payee list.

akhan7 said: Kind of... on my newer card (not from MBNA with the "real" billpay choice). I used the $75 checking signup bonus. I lost the CC-only billpay that allowed me to pull payments to pay my card from other banks. I got the standard version, where you can pay only from your BoA checking.

I called several times, and I was also told the only way to do this was to delete the checking. I haven't yet, though, so I don't know if it would really revert back correctly.

On another note, my dad has an MBNA card with billpaychoice. When he clicks the bill pay tab, he gets an intermediate screen that lets him select standard billpay or bill pay choice.

akhan7, I'm sure you're talking to your dad to become an AU (Au really is "gold" here!) on his card already ... but in case you just want the ability to pay your BOA CC using funds directly from an external account, BOA provides an option: https://www.myeasypayment.com/. You'll be asked question each and every time (there's no login to create and store your info), but it does work the way you seem to like.

markkundinger said: kvkeee said: Any suggestions on how I can take advantage of this feature..?
Most banks don't have a setup where you can billpay into a deposit account. You need an financial institution which is on the payee list, and you can type an account number, and it will somehow get into that deposit account. There's not a lot A few instances have been named earlier in this mega-thread. But it has a problem, because repeated use tends to tick off someone (either MBNA or the depository institution) after a while, and there's the risk of billpay being shutdown, or the bank account being shut down.
Any way to achieve this even if your bank is not listed in the payee list?
nope, they absolutely have to be on the payee list.

Thanks Markkundinger..I really do not want the billpay feature go away. So let me NOT try that option.

I just found out that the card I have been using for billpay (LLBean visa-a former MBNA card) is ending their relationship with BOA. I am sure BOA will keep the account by converting it to a different card but I am concerned that I will lose my billpay... Anybody have any thoughts on this? I am guessing I will just need to wait it out...

I posted some recent curious observations relating to my BoA cards online access and credit reporting consistency in my addition to cashmonkey's aor thread.

peteypablo said: My dear wife's MBNA billpay service appears to have suffered a serious alteration which makes it much less useful. We received a notice that our phone bill could not be paid with one of her credit cards. This may be explained by the bill being in my name alone and the credit card in hers alone. I then tried to schedule new payments from credit cards. Nothing works. The only thing they will do now is pull money from my checking account and pay bills with it. I can do that with my regular bank.

This may have been triggered by my wife applying for a checking account and savings account to do Keep the Change. She got turned down for the accounts, and that scrutiny may have led to this change. Anyone else seen this change?

The worst thing about it is that they could notify you about a failed credit card payment after it is too late to schedule a payment by other means. This could cost an introductory rate.

Previously, Aepheme posted that applying for a BOA checking account eliminated the MBNA BillPay.

peteypablo said: MillionDollarMan said: Previously, Aepheme posted that applying for a BOA checking account eliminated the MBNA BillPay.

This doesn't make me feel any less stupid, but I would note that Aepheme reported losing MBNA Billpay Choice on successful application for the checking account and being told he could get it back by deleting the checking account. I applied unsuccessfully and lost it also. This casts doubt on the theory that you can get it back by deleting the account. What a boneheaded move!

It can't hurt to call to see if they would be willing to reinstate the MBNA BillPay since you did not get the checking account. I don't think it was a boneheaded move. There was no reason to assume that simply opening a BOA checking account would result in a loss of the MBNA BillPay functions.

Just wanted to update on my situation mentioned above for other's reference... My LLBean visa (formerly MBNA) with Billpay choice was converted to Worldpoints visa July 1, due to LLBean changing banks on their card. I was concerned that with the conversion I would lose Billpay choice. So I waited to see what would happen and I have checked now since the conversion and the Billpay choice is still available. So it worked out fine for me!

peteypablo said: My dear wife's MBNA billpay service appears to have suffered a serious alteration which makes it much less useful. We received a notice that our phone bill could not be paid with one of her credit cards. This may be explained by the bill being in my name alone and the credit card in hers alone. I then tried to schedule new payments from credit cards. Nothing works. The only thing they will do now is pull money from my checking account and pay bills with it. I can do that with my regular bank.

This may have been triggered by my wife applying for a checking account and savings account to do Keep the Change. She got turned down for the accounts, and that scrutiny may have led to this change. Anyone else seen this change?

The worst thing about it is that they could notify you about a failed credit card payment after it is too late to schedule a payment by other means. This could cost an introductory rate.

Mystery solved. I got letter today from Bank of America closing all of my accounts, closing all of my wife's accounts, and closing my son's account. What do all three of us have in common? We all applied for MyAccess Checking at a time when we had relatively high credit card balances and we all have the same street address. In my case, I had also just maxed out my BOA NEA balance transfer after repeated begging from BOA. I don't think it was the BT that did it; I think it was the credit review that accompanied the application for the checking account.

I know this is a chance we take with AORs. I'm a big boy and I can take it. But there is still something of an emotional sting to being told you are no longer considered worthy of credit. I'll lick my wounds for a bit, and then approach BOA about reinstating.

I'll post this to adverse action thread as well, but has anyone lost a promotional rate when an account was closed?

Since the LLBean-Worldpoints conversion, I have lost my MBNA BillPay Choice effective with the first statement cut after the conversion.