Hi, I am thinking about paying off my car loan next week, using a 0% credit card. I have a Bluebird account with $1,500 funded via VR"s on a credit card that's 0% until December 2014. I only have 3 remaining payments of $450 on my car loan, due 10/30, 11/30, and 12/30 (about 600 last payment). My car is at 8.99% and it was a 79 month loan (bad credit when I took it out). My payoff as of Monday 10/28/13 is $1,495.96.
So, basically I could pay it off from my Bluebird account which was funded using a 0% credit card, and the $1,500 is basically 0% until 12/2014. The only thing I'm worried about is the potential impact to my credit profile/score in paying off an auto loan, as I don't have any mortgages on my credit (renter). I have had this loan for a while, and had late payments on it, 2 in 2012 of 30 days, and as late as 60 days in 2009, so I'm wondering if I should just keep paying it and take the interest hit to show a few more on time payments on my credit before it's paid off.
Also, I'm wondering the impact of the $450 payment from the car loan being removed from my profile, would this make me more likely to get CLI's and higher starting limits? I only pay $700 rent now, with a $75k income, and only the car loan, $30 student loan payment ($500 left), $2,600 installment personal loan with $132/mo payment and that's all my debt. (besides the $1,500 on Discover but I can pay that off now if I kept the car loan, I only used it to buy the VR's to do the better than free BT.
Any thoughts? Pros, cons. I would plan to pay off the $1,500 on Discover over about 6 months, while then making a much larger monthly payment to my personal loan at 12.9%, basically paying the same per month but to the personal loan. I actually have $15,000 in 0% available, but didn't want to transfer all my debt to it, because I am concerned about the utilization hit to my score. I considered myself borderline approved for prime cards recently at just about 700 FICO"s, and would hate to get AA due to running my utilization up.
I currently have about $30K in credit card limits, with no balances but the $1,500 on Discover which is really only a manufactured balance for the purpose of the possible transfer.
