Balance Transfer CC - ITIN

[Anonymous]

Hello.

My promotional 0% APR is ending on Amex Everyday card. I want to make a balance transfer as I am still carrying a balance of $3000. This is even harder because I do not have SSN yet, just ITIN. Credit.com is showing my score as excellent - 751.

I am an authorized user on my wifes cards. I also own two credit cards. Amex Everyday with $20k limit and Capital One Platinum Secured with $900 limit. I tried to upgrade that secured card because I have it 2 years now but with no luck. Another Amex cc would be the best bet as they are very friendly, accept ITIN and there are no balance transfer fees but I cant make a transfer to the same bank unfortunatelly.

As I found, my only options are:

1.Capital One

- Savor

- Quicksilver

2.Citi

- Thank You Preferred

- Diamond Preferred

3.BoA

- BankAmericard

Capital One would be good but they do not want to upgrade my secured cc, also when I fill out their pre-qualification online form I am getting Quicksilver One (with no 0% balance tranfer and with $39 annual fee), that the regular Quicksilver, so it might be hard to get it. 

Citi would be okay but as I noticed their credit limit is low for ITIN holders.

BoA card does not have any benefits and rewards, no purchase promotional APR.

What would you recommend besides paying off that $3k balance?

[K-in-Boston]

Welcome to the forums!  BoA is usually very ITIN-friendly from what I have heard.  The BankAmericard, in addition to having a $0 fee balance transfer for 15 months at 0%, does also have a 0% introductory rate for 15 months on new purchases.  While it's true that there are no rewards on the card, it's meant as a no-frills card with a reduced APR compared to other cards.  It can be changed to any of their core cards (Cash Rewards, Travel Rewards, Premium Rewards) once you've paid off the balance transfer, though.

Keep in mind that the score you are getting from credit.com is not a FICO score, it is a VantageScore 3.0 based on Experian data, and could vary by 100 points or more up or down.  You can get your FICO 08 score based on the same Experian data from creditscorecard.com for free once a month from Discover (no need to have a Discover account), which is what Bank of America will use, and would be one of the three scores that Capital One would use (they pull from Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion for all applications).

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your post. 

I did check the Americard through BoA website and you are correct. I don't know where I seen that incorrect information.

So you would recommend going with BoA card? Do you happen to know their credit limits?

I tries to sign up at creditscorecard.com but I am getting an error message "Sorry, we were not able to verify your identity". Maybe they are not accepting ITIN, I had the same message at experian.com. The only website that worked for me was credit.com

[K-in-Boston]

I highly recommend Bank of America, which I would have been surprised to hear anyone say a decade ago! LOL

BoA can be very generous with limits (I am at $99,900 total across 3 cards ($56,600, $28,300, and $15,000) and my wife is at $90,000 on 1 card) if you have the income and profile to support the limits.  They can also grow very quickly with credit line increases, which are now a soft pull.  Discover doesn't accept ITINs for credit cards anymore, so I guess it makes sense that they would also not accept ITIN in place of SSN for their credit score site.  I didn't think about that.

[Aahz]

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@K-in-Boston wrote:

Welcome to the forums!  BoA is usually very ITIN-friendly from what I have heard.  The BankAmericard, in addition to having a $0 fee balance transfer for 15 months at 0%, does also have a 0% introductory rate for 15 months on new purchases.  While it's true that there are no rewards on the card, it's meant as a no-frills card with a reduced APR compared to other cards.  It can be changed to any of their core cards (Cash Rewards, Travel Rewards, Premium Rewards) once you've paid off the balance transfer, though.

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Totally agree with K in regards to BankAmericard being your best bet.

Just wanted to clarify the part of K's response that I bolded above-

The BankAmericard offers a $0 BT fee for the first 60 days and any BTs taken under that offer will have a 0% APR for 15 months.

I know K knows this, but their wording above could lead people to think the $0 fee offer is good for 15 months as well.

[Anonymous]

Okay. So I am going to apply for this card. I tried to do it online but it does not accept my ITIN, I would need to visit the BoA branch.

I checked my score through Amex and is shows a FICO score of 745. Do you think this would be enough to get approved?

[K-in-Boston]

The Amex score is Experian FICO 08, which is what Bank of America uses for new applications.  You should almost certainly be approved.

@Aahzthanks for putting in that clarification.  It was on my mind when I was typing it and somehow I missed it; yes like the Chase Slate, the balance transfer fee is only waived for a limited time after opening the account.

[Anonymous]

I got approved for Bankamericard with $5k CL. Yay!
Had to do 3 trips as they wanted tons of documents and bills to open the account but it worked. 

Thank you 

[tcbofade]

Congrats!

I LOVE it when this place works like it should! 

[K-in-Boston]

Awesome news!!!  Thanks for updating us and glad it worked out.  Enjoy that extended 0%, and once you get a few payments on it, you should see that blue "Request a credit line increase" link show up on your account page.  It's a soft pull these days, and BoA counter-offers, so ask for as much as you're comfortable with for a limit.