Best BT offers in town?

[thrasher865]

Who is offering the most attractive BT offers right now?

Here's my dilemma.  While waiting to receive my $8000 tax refund for purchasing a home, I incurred some expenses.  After receiving the $8000, minus some surprise taxes that I owed them from several years ago due to inaccurate W2s provided to me by my employer, and an expense incurred due to a household emergency, I am left with a CC balance of ~$3000 on a card with a $3000 CL.  So the card is essentially maxed out.  Now, I have paid all my other cards off, but due to carrying the balances, none of them have any BT offers available.  I want to transfer the $3000 to a card with a low BT rate and preferably a higher CL.  Unfortunately, I'm worried the maxed out card will keep me from getting approved.  So as far as I see I have 3 choices.

1) try to find a card I can get approved for right now

2) pay a little bit off the current card until it's about 70% utilized and then hopefully increase my chances of getting a BT offer from one of my other cards or applying for a new card

3) continue paying on the current card, with an APR of 13%

So, I want to scope out what kind of BT offers are out there right now.  I already have a Discover and BoA on which I carried pretty small balances on, and now they don't want my BT moneys.  The current card I'm carrying is a Chase card.

[DI]

To avoid the risk of damaging your FICO scores further... you may want to get a loan rather than more revolving tradelines. 

[Anonymous]

Addison 3.9% BT through 12/2010, no fees, then as low as 5.24%

PSECU 3.9% BT through 12/2010, no fees, then 9.9% standard rate.

PenFed 4.99% BT for 24 months, max $100 fee

[Anonymous]

I just got a US Bank Visa Platinum that offers 0%APR on balance transfers for 12 months.  It gave me a very generous limit (well above your targeted goal) and I have far lower scores than you do.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I just got a US Bank Visa Platinum that offers 0%APR on balance transfers for 12 months.  It gave me a very generous limit (well above your targeted goal) and I have far lower scores than you do.

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That reminds me, I got a Juniper Biz MC with 13 months 0%, then 8.24% standard with a $15k CL

So now you have Addison, PSECU, US Bank, Juniper Biz (Barclays) on the list.

[thrasher865]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I just got a US Bank Visa Platinum that offers 0%APR on balance transfers for 12 months.  It gave me a very generous limit (well above your targeted goal) and I have far lower scores than you do.

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That sounds appealing, whats the BT fee?  Also, the scores in my sig are no longer accurate.  My EQ score is now in the 690s.  I don't know about the other two.

[Anonymous]

Here are the details from their website.  Hope this helps.  I don't know if I could tell you my exact score right now or even when I applied since I can't seem to get any consistant information, but I'm certain I was still below your 690.

Balance Transfers:

0.00% for the first 12 billing cycles for balances transferred with this application2. Thereafter: 9.99% to 22.99% variable

(Subject to a minimum APR of 9.99% to 22.99%)

Other Fees

Balance Transfer Fee:

3.00% of the transaction amount, $5.00 minimum

Oh and that 2 after the word 'application' says this at the bottom:

2Introductory rate period will end early and rate will increase either to the APR for purchases or balance transfers or a Delinquency Rate if a Minimum Payment is not received by the Payment Due Date, your Account exceeds its credit limit, or you close your Account. We apply payments to balances with lower APRs, including introductory APRs, before balances with higher APRs.

[thrasher865]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I don't know if I could tell you my exact score right now or even when I applied since I can't seem to get any consistant information, but I'm certain I was still below your 690.

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O RLY?

lol, I thought US Bank was a stingy lender.  That sounds like a good card, thanks for the info.  My CRs haven't updated since I paid off 4 cards, so I'll wait another 30 days or so and then I'll pull another score and it should be >700.  Hopefully back around 750 like it used to be.  I went essentially from 50% util to 10 or 15% and 5 of 8 cards showing balance (most of them small balances) to 1 of 8.  So I'm expecting a decent increase.

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned.  Do they pull EQ?

[Watchmann]

Your interest runs about $33 a month, not exactly a budget buster.  I would not be casting about for more credit, instead focus like a laser beam and pay this debt off as quickly as possible.  Get a second job or sell some stuff if you need more money.  Transferring to a low rate tends to have an effect that makes people lackadaisical about paying the debt off since it is low interest.  That kind of thinking is why many people took on more debt than was prudent, the carrying costs were cheap.

[thrasher865]

$33/mo. may not be a budget buster for you, but keep in mind that peoples' budgets vary.  I'm cutting costs wherever I can.  There is no time for a second job when I'm already a full-time student on top of working full time.  40hrs at work + 16hrs of class + 8hrs of studying is pretty much my tipping point.

Transferring to a low rate tends to also have an effect that makes people pay off their debt faster, obviously, as $33 extra a month is going to pay it down.  I can't afford to pay more than $150/mo. to pay down this debt, so $150 off the balance each month is a heck of a lot better than $117 a month.  A 0% for 12 months BT offer would help me greatly.