Apporama 2024

[CorpCrMgr1]

Congratulations on the approvals. Sorry about the declines.

[drchaos]

Just got the PNC rejection letter today.

Yesterday TD Bank declined to raise my credit limit on the new card.

Now I am just waiting to hear from US bank before I start the balance transfers.

[drchaos]

Called US Bank today and it was also a rejection.

After getting someone at Navy Federal Credit Union that was a little confused I reached a supervisor.

She put in a request to combine my old card with th $7,100 limit with the new card that has a $8,100 limit.

Once I have the answer (3-5 business days) I will do both balance transfers.

I am meeting with  a vendor tomorrow.  To pay them in about a week I will max out both  the new 0% AMEX card and my existing Wells Fargo card (0% until October).

From the rough response I got this time around I may not be applying for any more 0% cards until 2026.

[drchaos]

After a number of setbacks I finally scored a small victory.

I now have two 0% balance transfer cards and one 0% purchase card.

TD Bank - $25,000 Limit 0% BT for 18 Months with 3% fee - will try to do $22,250 ($727.50 fee would leave $22.50 free_

NFCU - $8,100 Limit 1.99% BT for 12 Months with no fee - will try to do $8,050 (would leave $50 free)

Total Estimated Balance transfers $30,300

I will call and do the balance transfers over the phone to make sure I do not ask for more than they will allow. 

AMEX - $10,000 Limit for 15 Months with 0% on Purchases

Total Estimated Low Percentage Debt after BTs and Spending $40,300.

I will post the results for the balance transfer requests within the next three days.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in this thread.

[drchaos]

So it seems that the credit card companies are making things much tougher on people like us.

On December 29th I took money out of my ROTH IRA to pay down the credit cards in preperation for the credit card applications.

By my math I need to put this money back on Monday.

At this time I have a negative balance of over $24K on my existing AMEX Card (not the new one) which will be refunded by a check.

As of this morning the negative balance still shows on the account so my chances of receiving this check, making the deposit into my checking account, and having the check clear so that is is available for my ROTH contribution on Monday are basically zero.

My Citi Double Cash Card has a negative balance of over $8K that will be refunded by an electronic transfer into my checking account.

They told me it would take 7-10 business days to process (no idea why) but I did ask them to expedite it when I called to follow up yesterday.

As of this morning nothing has happened with the Citi account, perhaps there is a tiny chance they send the funds tomorrow.

So this leaves me eating 3% balance transfer fees to the tune of just over $900 on the funds I transfered from NFCU and TD Bank onto these two cards yet not having these funds available to avoid taking the pain of withdrawing funds from my Inherited IRA tomorrow to cover the repayment to the ROTH IRA on Monday.

To  make matters worse I sold NVDIA stock in the Inherited IRA a couple days ago to have the funds availble tomorrow if needed.

At least I have a new $10K AMEX card with zero percent on purchases.

I am disappointed with the need to withdraw funds from the Inherited IRA but being forced to put this money into my business is not the end of the world.

Overall I have to say that the results of this Apporama were not so great.

[drchaos]

Almost done with everything.

I had one of the balance transfers sent to my AMEX spender to create a negative balance.

After dragging their feet AMEX finally cut a check for the refund.

I called them today and they told me that the check was sent through the USPS and takes 7-10 business days to arrive.

That would mean that this check I have not yet received should arrive within the next 48 hours.

Is it natural for the post office to take a whole week to deliver a letter such as this or should I be worried that something went wrong.

Thanks in advance.

[drchaos]

Check received yesterday (March 6th).

All funds finally received.

Considering that I borrowed from my retirement account on December 6th the credit card companies really did their best to make sure that I wasn't getting my funds within the 60 day window before I had to put the money back.

The whole process used to be so much easier but in the end I was able to generate about $31K in cash and now have $10,000 at 0% APR until February of 2025 on purchases to spend.

I can also use the remaining balance of my Wells Fargo card to make purchases at 0% until I have to pay the card off in October of this year.

I suppose things could have gone worse but I did so much better last year.

Perhaps I rushed things a bit.

[drchaos]

Meant borrowed from IRA on December 29th, not the 6th.

A little closer but still did not have the funds within the 60 day window.

[NoHardLimits]

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@drchaos wrote:

I suppose things could have gone worse but I did so much better last year.

Perhaps I rushed things a bit.

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Lenders have significantly tightened up their credit card approval standards.  App-o-ramas have mostly gone out of fashion in recent years.

[cmro81]

Hello. So was TD your third Experian pull? Chase and Amex were Experian pulls before them? Thank you.