Which card to get? BT a student loan??

[Kostya1992]

Mom has a 7.2K government student loan (NELTNET) and a really good credit history. Is it possible to get a Balance Transfer card of sorts (Discover IT, Slate?) and just kill the loan off with a Balance Transfer check? What would yall recommend? She has been getting spammed hardcore with both Discover IT and Slate offers nonstop for the past 2 years. Any advice is appreciated as always!

[chalupaman]

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@Kostya1992 wrote:

Mom has a 7.2K government student loan (NELTNET) and a really good credit history. Is it possible to get a Balance Transfer card of sorts (Discover IT, Slate?) and just kill the loan off with a Balance Transfer check? What would yall recommend? She has been getting spammed hardcore with both Discover IT and Slate offers nonstop for the past 2 years. Any advice is appreciated as always!

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Credit unions tend to give out some high enough limits for that sort of thing. Maybe she could look into some of what DCU has to offer.

I would not get the Slate at all but Discover I'd also take a look at. They offer me good BT offers all the time. Barclaycard Ring isn't a bad option either.

[Anonymous]

Slate has no BT fee (in the first xx days). For other cards it's normally 3%. And chase is known to be cool with consolidating credit limits.

[Kostya1992]

You mean the DCU (non-rewards) Visa that has a low APR? I'll take a look.

What interests me about the Discover IT is the 18month 0% APR, and she can use the card at Sams since she doesn't have any good mastercards/discovers.

This is possible though right? I can open a credit card, request balance transfer check and pay off a government student loan?

[Kostya1992]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Slate has no BT fee (in the first xx days). For other cards it's normally 3%. And chase is known to be cool with consolidating credit limits.

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Interesting. She would be saving around $250 but Slate has 3 months less of 0% APR. She currently has a Freedom so she does have an "in" with Chase. From what I've seen, Chase is much more relaxed with limits than Discover. I'm sure they'll give her a high limit while Discover might not even cover the full student loan balance.

[Kostya1992]

Checked out the DCU 8.5% Visa. While it does have balance transffers without a fee, it doesn't seem to have an intro APR period, which kind of sucks. The intent is to stop paying interest on the loan and to pay it off before an intro APR expires.

[chalupaman]

Of course she can get a good limit on Slate, then by all means look into that. I was just thinking more about cards that could give a high enough limit right out of the gate for this sort of thing. 

This version of that card has no BT fee but goes as low as 8.5% for the APR on the BT.

https://www.dcu.org/loans/visa-platinum.html

[Kostya1992]

Doesn't have a 0% intro APR for 15+ months like Slate & Discover IT though.

[Kostya1992]

Still need to know if i can in fact use a BT to pay off a govt NELNET student loan. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Best bet is a card that will offer convenience checks for BT.