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
explain. He said it was like doing a cash out refinance of your home. I
said it's not even the same thing. So he checked with a supervisor. When
he came back he said they could not finance it. He compared it again to a
cash out refinance of a home. That analogy really confused me. I said,
so if I produced an agreement of sale transferring from my corporate name to
another entity you would finance it? That thought, I think, confused him.
I then made a snap decision that they are definitely not customer service
orientated, and I didn't need to be creative to place my business with MBNA.
So I thanked him for his time and we parted ways. Interestingly enough I
called several other vendors that specialize in aircraft financing, they
were delighted to have my business and finance the plane.

It is incredulous that MBNA would not finance this plane! I guess MBNA has
more business than they need because they sure don't seem very anxious to
bring on new business, or at the very least are not really geared to handle
aircraft financing, it is really a side line business and does not conform
to their core business model, the credit card business. Inflexibility
up-front is not
a really good sign of customer support and service. I would not
recommend MBNA, and would urge others to look else where for their aircraft
financing. I would also be curious if anyone else has had customer
inflexibility with MBNA?

Charles