topic Re: Balance Tranfer in Credit Cards

Balance Tranfer

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Sep 2015 20:23:18 GMT

Hello! Two cards: 1 has a 6k limit with $4,400 on it (a bal transfer) and another has a 12.5k limit with $4,500 on it (also a bal transfer). I have an opportunity with the larger limit card to do a balance transfer for the full amount of the first card. The first card has to be paid by July of 2016, but if I transfer it I have until Mar. 2017 to pay off the 8k (which I can do). The question is: Is it better to have a 0 balance on the 6k card but have a 72% usage on the other card (with 0 interest). Sorry it's confusing. Also, I have 8 cards total and there is basically no balance on any of the other ones, so my credit is very good. No other cards are ofering a 0 balance transfer so I can spread them out more. Thanks in advance!

Re: Balance Tranfer

gdale6 — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 00:11:03 GMT

ttt

Re: Balance Tranfer

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 01:16:46 GMT

Can you shorten your response?.....ha!

Re: Balance Tranfer

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 01:19:41 GMT

No, it is not good to have 0 balance on one card and then 72% on another card. It impacts your report negatively. But if you are not planning on buying anything where your report will be pulled or applying for a new card then you should be fine. Here is how your scores are calculated..

Re: Balance Tranfer

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 01:22:36 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Can you shorten your response?.....ha!

TTT is to the top. He was bumping up your thread so others would see it and respond.

Re: Balance Tranfer

dragontears — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 01:30:06 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Hello! Two cards: 1 has a 6k limit with $4,400 on it (a bal transfer) and another has a 12.5k limit with $4,500 on it (also a bal transfer). I have an opportunity with the larger limit card to do a balance transfer for the full amount of the first card. The first card has to be paid by July of 2016, but if I transfer it I have until Mar. 2017 to pay off the 8k (which I can do). The question is: Is it better to have a 0 balance on the 6k card but have a 72% usage on the other card (with 0 interest). Sorry it's confusing. Also, I have 8 cards total and there is basically no balance on any of the other ones, so my credit is very good. No other cards are ofering a 0 balance transfer so I can spread them out more. Thanks in advance!

So you currently have

4400/6000 = 73%

4500/12500 = 36%

and you are concidering go to

0/6000 = 0

8900/12500 = 71%

seams to me you would lower your max utilization on a single card by doing the transfer, unless I am missing something?

Re: Balance Tranfer

NRB525 — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 04:30:23 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Hello! Two cards: 1 has a 6k limit with $4,400 on it (a bal transfer) and another has a 12.5k limit with $4,500 on it (also a bal transfer). I have an opportunity with the larger limit card to do a balance transfer for the full amount of the first card. The first card has to be paid by July of 2016, but if I transfer it I have until Mar. 2017 to pay off the 8k (which I can do). The question is: Is it better to have a 0 balance on the 6k card but have a 72% usage on the other card (with 0 interest). Sorry it's confusing. Also, I have 8 cards total and there is basically no balance on any of the other ones, so my credit is very good. No other cards are ofering a 0 balance transfer so I can spread them out more. Thanks in advance!

I would not transfer the promo BT off the $6k card, because you already paid a fee to get it there. You have until July 2016, 10 months, to continue to enjoy a low or 0% APR. Keep the funds there. If you BT now, you would be paying a fee for, really, only the time period between August 2016 and March 2017, so only getting 8 months of benefit, you don't get the 18 months benefit.

The card with the $12,500 limit probably has routine, monthly BT offers. Every card that I use which has BT offers, whether it is BofA, US Bank or Discover, always has BT offers, so don't just jump at the first one that comes along.

The other reason is, since the $12,500 card is also on a BT offer, that probably has a different end date than March 2017, and so you would end up when that expired with two tiers of balances, with different BT expiration dates, so paying regular interest on the current balance on the card, and the promo rate on what you are thinking of moving to it. Unwinding these types of two-tier APR situations is not impossible, but it's a hassle and you don't want to jump into that fire.

Your score already reflects the high utilization, but cash money savings on the current BT offers always beats any FICO considerations. Your FICO will come back as you pay down these balances, and you will pay them down faster if you just leave them where they are, and concentrate payments to them.

Re: Balance Tranfer

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 10:56:48 GMT

Thanks for your responses. I will now look out for the TTT.....

Re: Balance Tranfer

takeshi74 — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 14:33:36 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
The first card has to be paid by July of 2016, but if I transfer it I have until Mar. 2017 to pay off the 8k (which I can do). The question is: Is it better to have a 0 balance on the 6k card but have a 72% usage on the other card (with 0 interest).

How long would it take you to get it down to 50%? 30%? Short term high utilization generally isn't an issue but prolonged high utilization can get one into trouble.