I wanted to relate an interesting story. I purchased a small single engine
Piper in January of this year through my business. At the time I had extra
cash in the business, so rather than finance it, I decided just to use the
cash and then
perhaps put the financing in place later.

Well the later turned out to be yesterday. I decided to try MBNA based upon
AOPA's recommendation, so I called MBNA. and inquired about the financing.
Generally I have found AOPA's approved affiliates to be excellent, and very
customer service orientated. This was not the case with MBNA. To my
surprise the MBNA representative told me they could not finance a plane that
wasn't an actual purchase. I didn't really understand why, and asked him to

I'll offer a counterpoint to this. I bought my plane 3 years ago for
cash. 6 months ago I decided to "refinance" so I could update my radio
stack. I used MBNA and they were a pleasure to deal with. They gave me a
better rate and offered to finance more of the plane than Dorr or the
other ones I talked to. One difference in our stories--I did finance
more than the cost of the stack and used the extra to pay off a home
equity line so as far as they were concerned it was a refinance and not
just taking cash out of the plane. Still, they were great to work with.
Maybe the Bank of America merger has addled their brains. The bank where
I have my checking and savings accounts recently became BoA. Now I get
half the services for twice the fees.

--Rick