Update Approved: Dueling US Bank offers in the mail

[Sevenfeet]

Sometimes it's really weird how different parts of the same institution solicit your business, often at the same time.

In the last few days, I got two solicitations in the mail from US Bank.  One is for a balance transfer offer for 12 months, 0% interest with a 3% transfer fee on my existing US Bank Cash+ card ($12k limit).  That's not bad and better than some of the offers I've seen recently.

But then US Bank also sent me a completely different offer a day later.  This is for a new card, a Platinum Visa which we all know is just a plain card meant for balance transfers and no rewards.  But the offer was a little eye-popping....18 months 0% no interest on transfers AND purchases (3% transfer fee on transfers, 60 day limit on transfers).

Now I've done this little game before with a Suntrust card that I used to park some debt and just recently paid it in full.  But otherwise it's not a useful card other than just upping my overall Cl by $5k.  And with all the cards I have since joining this website years ago, do I really need to burn an inquiry (I'm assuming at TU since they mention them in the letter)? 

I actually would like to park some debt for awhile, but I don't want to do anything on a card over 29% utilization lest it hit my FICO scores.

Current card cache includes:

Amex Plat

Amex BCP

US Bank Cash + 

BofA Cash Rewards (which I also got a balance transfer offer in the mail for 14 months 0% just today)

Citi Double Cash

Discover

Chase Freedom

Chase Sapphire Preferred

Fidelity Visa

Penfed Visa

Suntrust

Barclays Apple Card

Ideas?

[pinkandgrey]

In my personal opinion, I’d go for that 12-mo offer on your current card. That’s a good deal and has the same transfer fee. Plus you won’t take a hit for a new account and you won’t be stuck with a “useless” card once you pay it off.

Good luck!!

[addicted_to_credit]

I have the platinum card but my SUB is 0% for 20 months, I wouldn’t call it useless I’m going on vacation next week and plan to use it and just pay it back over time rather than pull from savings. It was the first card I apped for when I started rebuilding my portfolio so to speak, thinking I wasn’t worthy enough just yet and USB surprised me with a 3500 sl a month later I apped for the cash+ and got a14k sl. I like both cards for their purposes. Either way it’ll be a HP from what I understand about USB but like pinkandgrey said you won’t get hit with a new acct as well for the cli.

[Hockeypnc1]

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@pinkandgrey wrote:

In my personal opinion, I’d go for that 12-mo offer on your current card. That’s a good deal and has the same transfer fee. Plus you won’t take a hit for a new account and you won’t be stuck with a “useless” card once you pay it off.

Good luck!!

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Ha! My friends, family, and myself all call US Bank "Useless Bank"

[Sevenfeet]

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@addicted_to_credit wrote:

I have the platinum card but my SUB is 0% for 20 months, I wouldn’t call it useless I’m going on vacation next week and plan to use it and just pay it back over time rather than pull from savings. It was the first card I apped for when I started rebuilding my portfolio so to speak, thinking I wasn’t worthy enough just yet and USB surprised me with a 3500 sl a month later I apped for the cash+ and got a14k sl. I like both cards for their purposes. Either way it’ll be a HP from what I understand about USB but like pinkandgrey said you won’t get hit with a new acct as well for the cli.

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Yeah, there is a part of me that is thinking "do both".  Like you, I take vacation next week.  It's too late to get the card in time before my flight but I could transfer spent funds to it later.  But I think I will wait just a bit....probably a month.  My scores are at about 739 for TU....good but it was 760 a few months ago and since I know I'm going to pay off a card at 60% util next week, it'll likely rebound a bit.  Maybe a good plan is to call USB underwriting and ask for a CLI on the Cash+ card first, making sure it'll be a SP.  If that works, then I can app for the Platinum card and then call underwriting back to get the maximum amount for that credit line.

If I can get a halfway decent CL on the new card, then I could use it either for a BT or maybe a new purchase or two that I could park for a while.   If the CL is lame, then I can still BT on the Cash+ card.  Honestly the only new card I thought I'd do this summer was the new Apple Card, but this may be a decent way to get some credit flexibility as we continue to retire debt.

[Sevenfeet]

An epilogue to this...

I was going to go ahead and app for the Platinum card since the deal was too good to pass up,, even though I don't really need another card.  And then I'd see about doing a CLI on my Cash + card shortly thereafter.  And then something awful happened.  I got notice of a 30 day late on my Experian credit report from GM Financial on an apparent error by them and my dealership on a lease that ended back in April.  But I know it's going to be a fight to correct this on my credit report.  The result of the 30 day derog was a 56 point drop to 691!

So I decided to just go ahead and pull the trigger on the stuff now since it's on TU.  The Platinum card was approved for $9700 (ok, but I wanted more) and the Cash + card was approved for a CLI for an additional $4000, bringing the total CL to $16K, which is pretty good and getting close to the others at $20k.  But this problem means I can't ask for a increase for anything using Experian including Amex until its straightened out.  And I'm pretty mad about it.

[addicted_to_credit]

Congrats on the approval and cli, my condolences go to you on your score... Hopefully you can get it removed before there an account review and avoid any potential AA.