Discover Balance Transfer Question

[jwheel113]

Hello. I recently applied and was approved for the Discover It. I did this to take advantage of a promo of 0% apr on balance transfers for 12 months with no fees on bt through October.   The main balance that I wanted to transfer was around 9500 on my Chase Explorer card and I indicated this on my application.  I got approved for the Discover card but only with a CL of 5800.  I called and tried to recon for more unsuccessfully.  On the Discover website it shows the BT as pending and looks like it could take up to 14 days to process.  My question is what amount can I expect to be transferred from the Chase card?  This is the first time I've done a BT and I normally PIF on all of my cards but I just got married and it's going to take some time for me to pay off my wedding expenses.  Thanks.

[PlasticOrPlastic]

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@jwheel113 wrote:

Hello. I recently applied and was approved for the Discover It. I did this to take advantage of a promo of 0% apr on balance transfers for 12 months with no fees on bt through October.   The main balance that I wanted to transfer was around 9500 on my Chase Explorer card and I indicated this on my application.  I got approved for the Discover card but only with a CL of 5800.  I called and tried to recon for more unsuccessfully.  On the Discover website it shows the BT as pending and looks like it could take up to 14 days to process.  My question is what amount can I expect to be transferred from the Chase card?  This is the first time I've done a BT and I normally PIF on all of my cards but I just got married and it's going to take some time for me to pay off my wedding expenses.  Thanks.

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First congrats on the recent wedding!  In my experience, Discover maxed the card with the BT.  I orginally had an $800 limit, and indicated a $1000 BT, they put all $800 on the new card and that was my balance.  I was kind of surprised, but paid it down and it was really no problem. 

[jwheel113]

Thank you so much.  Since the sole purpose of getting this card was the BT, I guess it's a good thing if they max out the card with the balance being transferred and I just start paying it down.  I'm a little bit surprised they wouldn't give me a higher CL knowing that I had a higher balance to transfer but I've never had a Disover card before and hear they are pretty conservative.  I have an Amex with a 24K limit and several other cards with much higher limits as well.  I guess it takes time to establish a relationship with Discover before they'll grant a high CL.

[PlasticOrPlastic]

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@jwheel113 wrote:

Thank you so much.  Since the sole purpose of getting this card was the BT, I guess it's a good thing if they max out the card with the balance being transferred and I just start paying it down.  I'm a little bit surprised they wouldn't give me a higher CL knowing that I had a higher balance to transfer but I've never had a Disover card before and hear they are pretty conservative.  I have an Amex with a 24K limit and several other cards with much higher limits as well.  I guess it takes time to establish a relationship with Discover before they'll grant a high CL.

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Discover has been awesome with me, I went from $800 -> $3000 in 3 months of opening the card.  I did take 2 HP's however but it was well worth it to take advantage of the cashback offers (bought a new grill) and the BT offers (consolidated all CC's to Discover).  Some mention auto CLI's with Discover but I didnt want to wait to take advantage of 0% BT.  So far Discover has been the best CCC I've ever worked with. 

[takeshi74]

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@jwheel113 wrote:

This is the first time I've done a BT and I normally PIF on all of my cards but I just got married and it's going to take some time for me to pay off my wedding expenses. 

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Keep in mind that you're dinged for both high utilization and a maxed out card.  Also keep in mind that prolonged high utilization can lead to AA.  Even with an intro offer the 30% max utilization guideline applies.

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@jwheel113 wrote:

I'm a little bit surprised they wouldn't give me a higher CL knowing that I had a higher balance to transfer

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Your credit and the creditor's criteria determine your CL.  The BT is not used to determine your CL.

[PlasticOrPlastic]

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@takeshi74 wrote:

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@jwheel113 wrote:

This is the first time I've done a BT and I normally PIF on all of my cards but I just got married and it's going to take some time for me to pay off my wedding expenses. 

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Keep in mind that you're dinged for both high utilization and a maxed out card.  Also keep in mind that prolonged high utilization can lead to AA.  Even with an intro offer the 30% max utilization guideline applies.

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I ran into this as well and asked Discover about it, they said its no problem on their end and they said I've been doing awesome with the card.  Of course you may see a bit of a score drop for a while during the higher balance, but its really irrelevent if your trying to save money and/or have one or more fewer payments a month.  Even with a maxed Discover card all my others reported $0 and I actually saw an increase in score, it just depends on your profile.  For me 0% interest and 1 payment a month > a few temporary FICO points.

[jwheel113]

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@takeshi74 wrote:

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@jwheel113 wrote:

This is the first time I've done a BT and I normally PIF on all of my cards but I just got married and it's going to take some time for me to pay off my wedding expenses. 

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Keep in mind that you're dinged for both high utilization and a maxed out card.  Also keep in mind that prolonged high utilization can lead to AA.  Even with an intro offer the 30% max utilization guideline applies.

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@jwheel113 wrote:

I'm a little bit surprised they wouldn't give me a higher CL knowing that I had a higher balance to transfer

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Your credit and the creditor's criteria determine your CL.  The BT is not used to determine your CL.

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In terms of FICO scoring, how is the utilization of an individual card looked at  vs. total utilization amongst all cards? For example, if I have 6 cards and 2 are maxed out but my total utilzation is only 25% amongst all of my cards, how is that viewed?

You're saying the BT amount requested isn't factored into the CL that's issued whatsoever?  I've read on here where people were given a CL of the exact amount of the BT requested or just slightly above. Is that coincidental? I'm far from an expert on this, but I have to believe that the BT amount requested is at least a factor in what CL is issued.  In fact, when I called to see if a higher limit was available, I believe the CSR said something along the lines of "we looked at the BT amount and this is still the highest line of credit we can offer."  IMO it's a consideration.