Best Credit Card for balance transfers

[bobkmn]

Hi,

I am looking to apply for a credit card to be used basically for a balance transfer. I have been researching the various cards and it can get very confusing. I almost applied for the Citi Simplicty due to the 21 month promotion, but stopped short. I do not have a pre-approval for that card. I do have a pre-approval for the AMEX Blue Cash Everyday card. My current scores range from 680-720. Can anyone provide me with any information about those 2 cards or any other cards that might be better. My main concern about the new card is I would like to apply for one with less than a minimum CL, say 6-8,000. If I can provide any more information that might help, please let me know.

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

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@bobkmn wrote:

Hi,

I am looking to apply for a credit card to be used basically for a balance transfer. I have been researching the various cards and it can get very confusing. I almost applied for the Citi Simplicty due to the 21 month promotion, but stopped short. I do not have a pre-approval for that card. I do have a pre-approval for the AMEX Blue Cash Everyday card. My current scores range from 680-720. Can anyone provide me with any information about those 2 cards or any other cards that might be better. My main concern about the new card is I would like to apply for one with less than a minimum CL, say 6-8,000. If I can provide any more information that might help, please let me know.

Thank you.

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Please see the bold above. Am I reading this correctly? You want to ensure that your new card will have LESS than an $8,000 limit? If I am reading that correctly the the credit lines in your signature are still correct, I do not think you have to worry about a high credit line. In fact, I think you will have the opposite problem.

Citibank offers two cards with 21-month 0% balance transfer offers; the Simplicity and Diamond Preferred. Both cards have a 3% balance transfer fee. Once the intro balance transfer APR has expired, the Diamond Preferred can be PCed to something else, such as Double Cash whereas the Simplicity cannot be. Caveat: Citi is known to give paltry starting credit limits.

Chase offers the Slate. You have a Freedom...do you ever get offers when you sign into your account for Slate? Slate offers a shorter into balance transfer rate of 0% versus Citibank. Its 15 months for Slate or 6 months less than Citibank. Slate can be PCed to a Freedom Unlimited when you are done with the balance transfer which would go great with your Freedom.  Caveat: Like Citibank, Chase doesn't exactly excite with the initial credit lines.

Don't forget about your friends at Bank of America; the BankAmericard is similar to Chase Slate in every way; same intro period, same no fee on balance transfers and should be able to be PCed to something better in the future. See if you can get a pre-approval for that on BofA's website. 

Back to your original question...Amex BCE...I do see that they offer a 0% balance transfer for 15 months...I just don't think I have ever seen anybody here use that card for that purpose so I cannot offer you any insight. Amex starting credit lines are all over the place. Usually people with lower scores, who are rebuilding or had previously burned Amex end up with $1,000-$2,000 starting limits. Amex is good about CLI's after 60-90 days but thats not going to help you much when you are trying to take advantage of the balance transfer offer. 

[MrDisco99]

You want to look at Citi Simplicity, Chase Slate, and BoA BankAmericard (white card).

BCE will charge a transfer fee of 3% even on a new account.

[bobkmn]

Thanks for your comprehensive note. Yes, I mistyped. I want a card with at least 6-8,000 CL. The balances shown for the cards are not correct. I have not been here for a long time and do not remember how to change them. The Discover is now at 10,000, Klein Bank is now at 1,500, Barclay Card at 4,000, Wells Fargo is at 2,000 (zero balance), Chase is at 2,000 (zero balance), Best Buy (Citi) is 4,000 and I just opened a USAA Visa with a 6,000 CL (zero balance). I need to figure out how to add those new cards to my profile--after seeing that PhotoBucket is not helpful any more. And to change the balances there and my scores. Geez, gone for so long and now there are a myriad of things I have to do in order to get current. So does any of this new information change your thoughts re BofA, Simplicity/Diamond Preferred and Chase Slate?

Thanks for your marvellous help.

[Anonymous]

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@bobkmn wrote:

Thanks for your comprehensive note. Yes, I mistyped. I want a card with at least 6-8,000 CL. The balances shown for the cards are not correct. I have not been here for a long time and do not remember how to change them. The Discover is now at 10,000, Klein Bank is now at 1,500, Barclay Card at 4,000, Wells Fargo is at 2,000 (zero balance), Chase is at 2,000 (zero balance), Best Buy (Citi) is 4,000 and I just opened a USAA Visa with a 6,000 CL (zero balance). I need to figure out how to add those new cards to my profile--after seeing that PhotoBucket is not helpful any more. And to change the balances there and my scores. Geez, gone for so long and now there are a myriad of things I have to do in order to get current. So does any of this new information change your thoughts re BofA, Simplicity/Diamond Preferred and Chase Slate?

Thanks for your marvellous help.

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Oh good, okay that makes more sense that you would want/need a higher credit line. 

To change the pictures in your signature there is a thread in Smorgasboard with instructions.....I had the hardest time to the point that a very kind Moderator helped me LOL I had to give up my Young-Gen-X-Almost-A-Millennial Card for that one....

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/SmorgasBoard/THIS-IS-HOW-YOU-ADD-CREDIT-CARD-PICS-TO-YOUR-PROFILE/td...

Okay so back to your question. That is great that your Discover and USAA cards are over $5K. Citibank and Chase are still likely not going to give you want you need-at least at first. My mom had success in 2015 getting the limit on her Chase Slate increased right away from $3500 to $6,000 with just a phone call. I believe since the application was so fresh and she let them know that the initial limit was not sufficient for her balance transfer needs they upped it for her limit. I have heard Citibank and even BofA will do the same when asked. Be prepared for another HP if you ask, but if it nets you the limit you need then it is worth it. 

Will you be able to repay the debt in 15 months? If so, I would really go with Chase or BofA. I love that they do not charge the balance transfer fee (if done within the first 30 days of opening the account). I also like that you have an existing relationship with Chase and they may take that into account (as well as your Discover credit line) when issuing you a credit line (of course, they also take into account income and monthly payments as listed in your credit report). If I were to take a guess, I'd think you'd be approved for Slate at $4K and could probably have them increase it to $6K with a phone call. 

K in Boston indicated in a similar thread that BofA is known to give higher starting limits but I personally have no recent experience with this. Your next step could be to use the pre-approval tools on Citi, Chase and BofA's websites but I honestly do not believe you will have any issue being approved..its just a matter of starting credit line....I wish I could be of more help...but again I want to reiterate that you can always ask for a higher credit line for all three of these banks by letting them know you needed the higher limit to complete your balance transfers which makes all three a contender.

So at this point is really comes down to which you'd prefer; shorter 0% time but with no fee (BofA/Chase) or longer 0% time with a balance transfer fee (Citibank). And one last note (my posts are always novels!), if you wish to keep the card after the balance transfer is complete you can PC the Citi Diamond Preferred, Chase Slate and BofA BankAmericard..so for that reason please do not open Citi Simplicity as it cannot be changed to a new product.

[bobkmn]

Thanks, again. I do not dislike novels as I can have a tendency to do that myself. I am trying not to get more confused so I have a couple of simple questions. First, what is PC?  And are you saying not to get the Simplicity just because it cannot be PCd? I would probably keep the card after the BT has been taken care of, if for no other reason than I have been told by numerous folks, here and elsewhere, do not close an account simply because as it lessens your overall credit and might hurt the score. I had asked this when I stated that I was going to close my WF card as I am terminating all my other business with them, i.e. checking acct and savings acct. They said there is no reason to close a cc account with no AF.

Also, it appears that you implied that a pre-approval only affects the likelyhood of approval and not the initial CL, is that what you said? Lastly, (for now) you said that having a prior relationship with Chase might help as well as having the Discover and payment history. My experience is that when I apply for a card I get an answer in seconds. How can those things be checked on so quickly?   

Thanks again.

[Anonymous]

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@bobkmn wrote:

Thanks, again. I do not dislike novels as I can have a tendency to do that myself. I am trying not to get more confused so I have a couple of simple questions. First, what is PC?  And are you saying not to get the Simplicity just because it cannot be PCd? I would probably keep the card after the BT has been taken care of, if for no other reason than I have been told by numerous folks, here and elsewhere, do not close an account simply because as it lessens your overall credit and might hurt the score. I had asked this when I stated that I was going to close my WF card as I am terminating all my other business with them, i.e. checking acct and savings acct. They said there is no reason to close a cc account with no AF.

Also, it appears that you implied that a pre-approval only affects the likelyhood of approval and not the initial CL, is that what you said? Lastly, (for now) you said that having a prior relationship with Chase might help as well as having the Discover and payment history. My experience is that when I apply for a card I get an answer in seconds. How can those things be checked on so quickly?   

Thanks again.

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Apologies. PC means product change. So, for example if you were to go with the Chase Slate, the card becomes rather worthless once the intro balance transfer APR expires. So, many people like to product change Slate into a Freedom or Freedom Unlimited. PC is essentially changing one card type into another that the bank offers. Most banks allow this and others don't. For whatever reason, Citibank allows cardholders to change the Diamond Preferred card into another Citibank card, but they will not allow the Simplicity to be changed.

Closing accounts....part of our FICO scores is how much of our available credit we have versus how much of our credit we actually use. Most say to stay under 30% of our credit lines (for example only use about $33,333 of $100,000 total available credit across all accounts) for the best score. If you are someone that only has, say $20,000 available credit lines across all cards and you owe say $6,000 (30% of $20K) but decide to close a card with a $5000 limit; you would be reduced to $15,000 available credit of which you'd owe $6000 which is now 40% debt to credit ratio. So, if you are someone that carries larger balances and you don't have a whole lot of total credit lines, closing an account could impact your credit score. For someone like me (less than 1% balances across $200K + available credit) closing one or even three accounts would not hurt me at all. The other thing to consider in closing accounts is Average Age of Account (AAoA) which is an average age of all of your accounts-opened and closed, installment and revolving. The formula is not as easy as taking all of your cards' age and then dividing by how many cards you have (you actually would need to take the number of months for each account you have, add that number up, divide by how many accounts you have, then divide that number by 12 to get your AAoA). The longer AAoA you have the better. Keep in mind, closing a card will not hurt your AAoA at first as closed accounts are still factored into your AAoA. But at or sometimes before the account has been closed for 10 years, it will fall off your credit report which could hurt AAoA (but even then this would only impact a few people such as people who cant control opening new accounts or for someone that say only had two accounts, closed their oldest one and opened one new one, at year 10 the loss of that one other account could drop their AAoA). Basically closing accounts really is not a bad thing at all.

Correct, getting a pre-approval both in the mail or through a bank's website first and foremost isn't even a guarantee of approval but a good indicator that the bank likely will establish an account for you with the limited information they have. But yes, the credit line is only known when you actually apply and they use their calculations to determine credit line. We all share general information on forums like this to establish which banks and CUs are more generous than others.

Chase: often times if you already have established credit with a bank or credit union it can be beneficial as the creditor "trusts" you; they have  previously extended credit, you have used it wisely and always paid them back. Chase is a creditor that does not want to be your first credit card (I am sure there are those who somehow got Chase as their first credit card, but that is rare) and furthermore, they don't always want to be your first creditor to issue a $5,000+ credit line. Generally, Chase likes to see that another creditor has issued you a $5,000+ credit line before they will match or beat it. The fact that your Discover has $10,000 could help you in obtaining a higher credit line from Chase. Again, nothing is guaranteed and Chase usually saves the higher credit lines for their higher end cards. But it sure couldn't hurt you. 

Instant approvals are instant because of how quickly computers can process information. The bank receives your SSN which gives them access to your credit history; they get a score and glean other info from that in seconds; they take your stated income, use that in a calculation along with your other obligations and that helps spit out a credit line. 

Hope this helps. Please let us know what you decide to apply for and what the results are. 

[bobkmn]

Great answer!!! Yes, I will keep you informed. Think I will keep my WF card open for now. Has a zero balance and is my oldest.

Thanks!

[bobkmn]

I misspoke, my Discover CL is actually 12K.

[bobkmn]

Hi—me again. I think I have one more question. BTW I am going to apply for Chase Slate per your recommendation. Ok, here is the question—I am going to have two cc that I am going to use for bt. Is it best to split the balance between the two cards or, assuming there is room, put it all on one of the cards and lock it away? Any thoughts you may have would be appreciated. Oh, the two cards will be USAA and Chase Slate.