topic Re: Help staring balance transfer in Credit Cards

Help staring balance transfer

tiger99 — Sun, 12 Feb 2023 14:56:48 GMT

I'm looking into transferring a balance and opening a new card to help pay off some unexpected expenses over the past 18 months. I currently have ~$17,000 on a high interest Discover card getting my utilization pretty high at 70%. I have pretty good credit in the range of about 720 with each agency. I have a (I think) a fairly decent and stable salary. I have done research on some potential options for cards and have a few potential leads with 0% for 18 to 21 months. I guess my question is there any way to guesstimate if I will get a credit line high enough for the transfer or just transfer what I get? Would I be better off asking Discover for a lower rate? Any threads or links to discussions would be helpful. Thanks.

Re: Help staring balance transfer

tcbofade — Sun, 12 Feb 2023 15:17:12 GMT

You might open two new accounts.

Wells Fargo Reflect has an 18 month zero percent offer that extends to 21 months if you make all of your payments on time.

Bank of America Unlimited currently has an 18 month zero percent offer.

Assume $10k approvals on the both of the above, and you might want a third card to keep utilization down on all three new accounts.

Citi? FNBO? Chase?

There are a lot of options out there.

Good luck!

Re: Help staring balance transfer

Remedios — Sun, 12 Feb 2023 18:44:27 GMT

@tiger99 wrote:
I'm looking into transferring a balance and opening a new card to help pay off some unexpected expenses over the past 18 months. I currently have ~$17,000 on a high interest Discover card getting my utilization pretty high at 70%. I have pretty good credit in the range of about 720 with each agency. I have a (I think) a fairly decent and stable salary. I have done research on some potential options for cards and have a few potential leads with 0% for 18 to 21 months. I guess my question is there any way to guesstimate if I will get a credit line high enough for the transfer or just transfer what I get? Would I be better off asking Discover for a lower rate? Any threads or links to discussions would be helpful. Thanks.

How successful you are in getting new card for BT purposes really depends on your overall profile.

Typically, you shouldn't wait till card is near maxed and balance is rather chunky.

If you have lots of other cards to where impact on your aggregate utilization isn't too bad and you have plenty of accounts reporting $0.00, you'll probably be approved for a card or two.

If you have thin profile, it's going to be very hard to not appear as risky customer.

So, before guess work starts, could you share a bit more about your own profile, such as your existing accounts, when where they opened, their balances, any negatives, any lenders that are out for whatever reason etc

To answer your second question about asking Discover for lower rate - you can do that but at $17,000.00 a few percentages less won't really help that much. Doesn't hurt to try but definitely not a solution to your problem.

Re: Help staring balance transfer

Kforce — Sun, 12 Feb 2023 19:22:19 GMT

This ^^^

We need more info for a meaningful answer

Re: Help staring balance transfer

OmarGB9 — Sun, 12 Feb 2023 22:27:47 GMT

Could also call and ask Disco for a 0% APR offer. That would give you at least 12 months no interest.

Re: Help staring balance transfer

Remedios — Sun, 12 Feb 2023 22:52:16 GMT

@OmarGB9 wrote:
Could also call and ask Disco for a 0% APR offer. That would give you at least 12 months no interest.

It won't help them with the balance that's already there. When promotional apr is granted, it's only for new purchases going forward, they will still continue paying interest

Re: Help staring balance transfer

CreditCuriosity — Sun, 12 Feb 2023 23:11:01 GMT

Personal loan might be another option to consider although not 0%, one loan can do it depending on place at a lot better rate than what you are about to encounter as 17k isn't really a small balance to look to BT