CitiFlex LOC

[Anonymous]

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fillibert wrote:

I am extremely surprised she was approved for $32.5K, since this is a line of credit rather than a HELOC and Citi has no collateral for the LOC. Most banks and CUs won't get give much above 10-20K unless it is a HELOC.

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As was I.  Granted, she has pristine reports and high scores, but I was really expecting $15-20K.

[dizzier]

what are the benefits/draw backs of this?

I've received these offers before but was always confused about how they report. are they considered installment loans? revolving loans? LOC sim to HELOC?

[haulingthescoreup]

I have a HELOC from USAA. I have started some remodeling, and the big stuff will start in the spring. If you get a good rate, you can shift CC expense over to the HELOC. Mine is .95 less than WSJ prime rate, so that means it's currently 6.55%. Also, I only have to pay interest for the next 20 years, and then the principal is due (not doing that!) I don't know if that is how the CitiFlex is structured.

My HELOC reports to the CRA's on the last day of the month, and my USAA AmEx reports on the 5th. So I can charge on the AmEx, let the HELOC report whatever, quick like a bunny move the AmEx balance to the HELOC, and let the AmEx report $0. Obviously, it all gets reported eventually, but it delays the score hit for a month.

On EQ and EX, HELOC expense is treated as mortgage, despite the way they name it. TU treats it as revolving, so if you really are using a HELOC, your util is going to get hurt on your TU score. Since a regular LOC isn't tied to your home equity, I don't know how those get treated.

[Anonymous]

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dizzier wrote:
what are the benefits/draw backs of this?

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Like anything, they have their pros and cons.  We applied for this LOC for a very specific purpose.  We will be moving to a new apartment in Manhattan in a few months, and we will need cash to pay first and last month's rent as well as our security deposit, which we will then be able to pay off in three months or so.  A LOC is ideal in this situation for a couple of reasons:

- We get cash at the standard APR of 12.49, instead of paying the ridiculous cash advance rate on a CC.

- We can get the cash the same day we need to pay the prospective landlord, rather than taking out an installment loan and possibly being required to pay some of it back before we even find an apartment we like.

- When the landlord pulls our credit reports, if this account shows up at all it will have a zero balance, so the landlord will never know we took on this debt.  The alternative would be to run up our CCs over the previous couple of months in order to save the cash for the rent and security deposit, but then the landlord would see high balances on our CCs and we would be less likely to get the apartment at all.

BTW, yes, we have emergency savings, but we decided we'd rather not dip into those funds for a non-emergency situation like this, since this is far enough in advance we can prepare for it.  We don't want to screw ourselves over in the event a real emergency arises in the interim.

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dizzier wrote:
I've received these offers before but was always confused about how they report. are they considered installment loans? revolving loans? LOC sim to HELOC?

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This particular LOC reports as revolving.  I have read on other boards that the CitiFlex LOC either doesn't report a CL, or it reports a CL that is the same as the current balance, always showing 100% UTIL.  This is unfortunate, but once we move, STBDW won't be applying for anything before we get the balance paid off anyway.  (She's extremely gunshy about INQs...currently has one INQ on each CR and insists that we wait until they fall off before apping for anything else.)

[dizzier]

oooooooo thanks! I just got another one of these offered in the mail saturday. I'm seriously considering it!