topic Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is? in Credit Cards

Should I do a BT or leave as is?

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 01:22:34 GMT

I have a BT offer on my Chase Amazon card (0% until 3/20 with 4% fee). My Amazon card has a 13.5k limit which would be great as far as utilization goes. Offer expires on January 31st. I’m not fond of the 4% fee per say but it is what it is. I’m not sure if this offer would be around later on.

I currently have BTs on these cards:

Discover - 2335$/6500 (0% till August 28th) - this will be paid off by the end of the next month)

Amex ED - 3287$/7000 (0% till October 28th) - this will also be paid off by October)

Citi AA - 4264$/7500 (0% till December 1st) - I don’t expect this to be paid off by then as I am prioritizing Discover and Amex since they end sooner.

Should I maybe move some of ED and Citi AA over to the Amazon to get their utilization below 29% or should I leave as is since I’m currently not paying any interest on these yet?

I was thinking maybe I could move 1265$ from ED and around 2100$ from Citi to Amazon. This move would allow me to get these cards below 29% utilization. What are your thoughts?

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?

Remedios — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 03:09:48 GMT

Pay off Disco card, then BT Citi balance to it. Fee will be less. Pay off ED as planned.
In the end, disco may even give you decent CLI, they sure love those BTs.

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 04:12:53 GMT

@Remedios wrote:
Pay off Disco card, then BT Citi balance to it. Fee will be less. Pay off ED as planned.
In the end, disco may even give you decent CLI, they sure love those BTs.

I haven’t gotten a disco BT offer since I BT to the card in July. Idk if that was because I have a BT on it though. Only downside about disco is my limit is only 6500 while my amazon doubles that.

So u think I should just BT all of citi or just enough to get it below 29%?. I think I could pay it off if the balance was around 2k now as opposed of 4K

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?

Remedios — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 04:33:43 GMT

I really dont know. 4% is pretty steep fee.
Is there a possibility of you waiting till ED and Disco are paid off then applying for a decent bt card? You still have time to work on those balances.

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 05:00:24 GMT

@Remedios wrote:
I really dont know. 4% is pretty steep fee.
Is there a possibility of you waiting till ED and Disco are paid off then applying for a decent bt card? You still have time to work on those balances.

Yea certainly. I was thinking about aping for the BOA Americard for the no transfer fee. Idk if I would be approved because BOA has consistently denied me for CLIs for their cards. I have a Cash Rewards at 8.2k and a BBR at 2k.

At the same time, I was trying to limit apps this year since I opened 11 cards last year. I suppose I could wait as I should have BTs offers on some of my cards by then.

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 11:00:27 GMT

BT seems only necessary if you need a score boost soon, or if it actually save interest.

If you are not planning to app anything this year, why not just paying all 3 off like you planned?

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?

AverageJoesCredit — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 12:01:57 GMT

If you are going to pay off Ed and Disco before they end anyway and you have til Dec on the Citi AA, i would just let everything ride til then. By December you will have plenty options for bt either via apping another card or even using Disco.

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?

xaximus — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 13:32:16 GMT

Personally, I'd leave it alone. You have no interest until for atleast 6 months. Depending on payments, you can knock out all 3 cards without worrying about a BT. I would only do a BT if you need the points (purchasing a house, car, etc.), old BT period ending, CL too low/card maxed, and a few other reasons. In your case, I don't really see any of them checked off. All together, you have about 10k owed on CCs. What is your payment plan setup?

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?

kdm31091 — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 13:47:27 GMT

I would just leave it alone and pay it off as planned. A 4% fee offer is nothing special at all.

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?

NRB525 — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 14:39:54 GMT

OP you are planning to pay about $5,600 of nearly $10,000 on 0% by October, and all these cards have purchase and APR offers at zero % until they start rolling off their introductory offers, correct?

If you want to improve FICO score along the way then it seems to me you need to just change up that initial payment of $2,335. Distribute that free money to the cards you want to see below 29%. Don’t use cash to pay off a 0% offer that has several months to run, then turn around and pay 4% to another card to get the same funds back to pay a third card.

Honestly you already have too many zero / new card offers going now, but those apps / choices are in the past.

Getting these cards below 29% will help your FICO score.

Paying larger amounts on each card will improve your internal score with all three banks.

Take advantage of the zero terms to do both for no additional fee.

The Discover card does not YET have BT offers because it is probably too new. As you pay that one down, target getting it to zero balance at about (or exactly) August 28. Discover BT offers almost always include two versions, a 3% fee for 12 months, and a no-fee BT with a 4.99% APR rate. You switch to regular APR on purchases in both of these, but there should be a BT offer showing up on Discover soon.

And just to to be clear, you do know Discover does not mail these offers, they reside in an area of their website?

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?

NRB525 — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 14:50:17 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Remedios wrote:
I really dont know. 4% is pretty steep fee.
Is there a possibility of you waiting till ED and Disco are paid off then applying for a decent bt card? You still have time to work on those balances.
Yea certainly. I was thinking about aping for the BOA Americard for the no transfer fee. Idk if I would be approved because BOA has consistently denied me for CLIs for their cards. I have a Cash Rewards at 8.2k and a BBR at 2k.

At the same time, I was trying to limit apps this year since I opened 11 cards last year. I suppose I could wait as I should have BTs offers on some of my cards by then.

There are lots of questions from new members “how many cards should I have”. I will say, in the current credit card environment of 2019, 11 new cards in the past year is too many. It looks like you picked up several cards that, with patience, you will see BT offers for. These range from 3% to 5% fees, but those fees are not bad if you pace out the payments to really have a plan to reduce your debt.

Kiting balances from one card to another is a musical chairs game that eventually ends badly, especially if using new card apps to create new chairs.

Can you list out all your cards, month - year of app, current limit, current balance, and APR. Also list which cards you are relying on for cash back or points earning. This request is more to make sure you have a clear eyed view to your current credit situation than anything else.

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 18:03:02 GMT

Actually my Discover card is 2 and a half years old. I was getting BTs offers often but then they stopped when I took advantage of the one in July. Also I plan on paying around 400-500$ a month extra towards my debt. This is not factoring in the minimums that I am already required to pay. I was planning on using my tax refund money to knock out Discover and some of AMEX. Hopefully that comes by the end of February with all this mess that’s going on.

I have 0% Purchase/Balance transfer APR on Discover and Amex but only 0% balance transfer on citi.

Thank you all for your replies! I will hold off on a BT till maybe October. I’m sure I will have some offers around then from either BOA, Chase and Citi (I have a Cap one card so I could easily move it to cap 1 then move it back to Citi). I may go for the BOA Americard assuming they still have the 0% fee by then.

In response to the above comment my limits are in my sig but I will list cards opened last year:

Fidelity
Citi DC
Care Credit
Hilton Honors
SPG
Hyatt
Venture
Amazon
Premier
Everyday
Gold

All of my cards are currently PIF except the ones under 0%.

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?

CreditInspired — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 19:20:24 GMT

@nrb525 said:
And just to to be clear, you do know Discover does not mail these offers, they reside in an area of their website?
——————————

I had been wondering why I never received any BT offers and then last month I was just fooling around on the site and happened onto it. I couldn’t stop smh in disbelief. Too funny 😂🤣

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?

CreditInspired — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 19:26:19 GMT

+1 @nrb525 said:
Kiting balances from one card to another is a musical chairs game that eventually ends badly, especially if using new card apps to create new chairs.

Agree. OP, Do you have a plan in place to just pay these balances off?

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 21:13:41 GMT

Yes I do. I will have Discover and Amex payed off by their deadlines. Discover will actually be paid off by next month while Amex could be paid off as early as August.

That would then leave me with around 2-3k remaining with Citi which would be able to be knocked out in 4-6 months after my others are paid off.