Balance Transfers

Anonymous · ‎10-30-2011

How would Balance transfers affect my Credit Score ??

Than You.

Anonymous · ‎10-30-2011

That's is a question that reqires a bit more info from you.

Just doing a simple bal xfer from one card to another should not affect your score in any way. You are just moving a balance from one card to another, your util stays the same, the only way I can think of a balance xfer hurting you is you xfer the bal from one card to another, and then max out the card you just xfered from, raising your util.

Whats your util now? How many CC's do you have, what's your total revolving credit? Are you moving the bal to a card with an intro APR of 0%? Lastly, why are you wanting to do a bal xfer, because of my previous question?

Bal xfers are not my field of expertice (only done one ever) hopefully a MyFico expert will chime in with a concrete answer for you.

Best of Luck!

Anonymous · ‎10-30-2011

Thank You Mustang,

I have a 22k balance with Pentagon Federal credit Union @ 2% permonth i,e: $ 440.00. I have the discover More card, The Discover Card and

AMX Blue. I would like to transfer so that my payments will be smaller. each card has a 5k Credit Limit. I have approx 18 months left at 0%. What is your advise.

Thanks Maria

Wolf3 · ‎10-30-2011

@Anonymous wrote:
Thank You Mustang,

@ I have a 22k balance with Pentagon Federal credit Union @ 2% permonth i,e: $ 440.00. I have the discover More card, The Discover Card and
AMX Blue. I would like to transfer so that my payments will be smaller. each card has a 5k Credit Limit. I have approx 18 months left at 0%. What is your advise.

Thanks Maria

Utilization of highest account and overall will not change, so FICO score should not change.

Make the decesion based on money saved. Is thare a balance tranfer fee?

Anonymous · ‎10-30-2011

Thanks for the reply,

Yes there is a 2 to 3 percent.

Anonymous · ‎10-30-2011

Well Maria,

It sounds like you have two other credit cards, Discover and AmEx, each with a 5K credit limit and a 22K loan, so how much do you want to xfer to each of the two other cards?

You really don't want to put 4K on each of the two cards from a FICO scoring standpoint, but if your concern is not scoring but rather money savings, it would seem doing the bal xfer could save you some money even with the 2% fee.

This is just something I'm concerned about, is you putting say 4k on your AmEx 5K limit card, I have read far too many posts where people claim AmEx does not like their cardholders carrying large balances for an extended period of time (which I assume you plan on doing) I have no idea if this is true, I'm just saying that I've read mucho amounts of posts like this.

Personally I have never carried a bal on any of my 4 AmEx cards, thats why I can't verify or deny this.

Whatever you do, I Wish you the Best!

Anonymous · ‎10-30-2011

Thank You for your concern and reply,

How much should i or could i transfer on both discover card so that it would not impact fico. Both have 5k credit limit or what percentage is good, say 25 to 30 %.

Thank you again.

Anonymous · ‎10-30-2011

@Anonymous wrote:
Thank You for your concern and reply,

How much should i or could i transfer on both discover card so that it would not impact fico. Both have 5k credit limit or what percentage is good, say 25 to 30 %.
Thank you again.

Well, you will always see your best scores with only one CC reporting a bal of <9% of its credit limit, so by spreading part of the 22K balance across two CC's is probably going to impact your scores, unless you already have several cards reporting balances, you may not see much of a score drop YMMV.

As far as how much percentage I'd put on the cards, I'd really rather not give you any advise, only because I've only done one myself and PIF that card 15 days later.

But if it were me in your shoes, I'd probably put like 50-60% on the Discover and maybe 25-30% on the AmEx, that's only my personal opinion, please don't take that as advise, because I really know nothing about bal xfers and how the CCC's feel about them, mailny AmEx, Discover or any other CCC for that matter does not worry me one bit but AmEx does.

Someone will chime in and give you solid advice.

Anonymous · ‎10-30-2011

Thank You Again,

So my understanding since i have 2 Discover Cards with a max of 5k each is 50 to 60%. That really works out at the very least I can drop the 22k to 15 or 16k. that means my payments on the 22k would drop from $445 to $300 to 320, A good savings. Wont mess with AMX .Please let me know if this sounds reasonable.

Thank you

Wolf3 · ‎10-30-2011

@Anonymous wrote:
Thank You Again,

So my understanding since i have 2 Discover Cards with a max of 5k each is 50 to 60%. That really works out at the very least I can drop the 22k to 15 or 16k. that means my payments on the 22k would drop from $445 to $300 to 320, A good savings. Wont mess with AMX .Please let me know if this sounds reasonable.

Thank you

That is a reasonable plan. Utilization is not bad, but more importantly you are getting your interest charges down