BT Question

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone i hope every one is having a great weekend. I am stuck here in a monsoon in FL   

Any who i have a question regardind a BT to a citi card.  My sister has 3 subprime cards Premier bank, HSBC, cap one needs improvement card. She is a student so no real offers yet for prime cards she just got a job and still go to shool. All have very low limits so utilization is high but her husband Just received a citi platinum card with like a 4500 limit 0% on BT AND Purchases until jan 2009.

I was wondering if this would be a good idea to transfer all those balances onto this card and just pay them down faster with no interest except the 3% bt fee. as it stands she is paying ginormous interest rates. Oh and by the way she is not planning to uses these again she actually wants to start moving away from them and getting into the prime cards. I had to tell her that her cards were not very good and would not grow with her. And don't even get me started on those AF's!

[islandchild82]

You didn't mention what her balances were on her cards. I would assume that they are low limit cards since they are rebuilders, but you never know.

It's never a good idea to max out a card, but if they aren't planning to apply for anything, then I think saving money by paying no interest for a while is the best way to go. Be sure, though, to factor in those BT fees vs. the interest charges. Again, as rebuilder cards, I'm sure her interest rates aren't ideal, but I would still try to calculate everything to make sure she was doing the best thing.

I recently made quite a few BTs to a higher limit card (didn't max it out!) and it has been a lot easier for me to manage. It's also a lot more gratifying to be making bigger payments, especially on a card with no interest.

[Anonymous]

Hi island child82 thank you for your response. Here are the stats on her cards. No they are not planning to get anymore cards for at least another year(they want to buy a house soon). They just want to pay these down and possibly close them (she wants to keep just the premier because its her oldest card on her report)

            Balance/Limit/APR

Cap1:  954.22/  1000/ 21.55%

Hsbc:  639.39/  750/  23.99%

Premier: 545.00/ 600/ 21.99%

Here is another part to this question. She is not AU on her Husbands card (citi plat) and he is not AU on any of her cards. In order to do a BT who would have to be put on the others cards? Her to his or His to hers??

How do they calculate the 3% on BT fee? Is it per transfered account or on the total balace?

[islandchild82]

Hi Laila,

No problem! I would definitely do the BT. She has some really high interest rates, and even with the 3% fee, they would still be at just about 50% util on the Citi card (if I did my math right!).

I believe the 3% fee is calculated per account/balance transferred.

I know that he doesn't have to be an AU on her cards to transfer the balances, but I'm not sure about her needing to be one on his. I wouldn't think so, but maybe someone with some experience doing that can chime in. HTH!