I currently have a B&N credit card with MBNA which is being discontinued as of April. THerefore, they are making my card into a WorldPoints mastercard. I don't find the Worldpoints program extremely competitive in and of itself and was trying to convert my card to either the Defenders of Wildlife Mastercard or American Express card or trying to get an MBNA American Express rewards card. The person I talked to said that the only card he could convert me to was the WorldPoints mastercard and that any other card I wanted would require a new credit card application and they would then close my old card down. In addition to not keeping my existing APR and credit history I would suffer an additional inquiry on my credit report. Is the information that the representative told me true? If so then MBNA is way behind other credit issuers like American Express, BankOne, Chase, and Bank of America which will all let you convert one card to another without an additional inquiry and you can keep the credit history from the old card as part of your new card. Obviously, the interest rates change from card to card but all of the above banks also let you keep your grace period. Does anyone have any suggestiosn about ways I can convert my MBNA card to various other MBNA cards without losing my credit history and suffering an inquiry. Becaue if not this new card will just simply collect dust unless I need to transfer a balance since the APR is 5.9% fixed since my other cards offer far better rewards structures.

Sincerely,

JC