Balance Transfer Impact

[Anonymous]

I'm looking for some advice.....

I have a BECU card that has a 0% promo on balance transfers right now. I'm thinking about transferring all the balances I have to that card and then everything else would be 0. The catch is that card would pretty much be maxed out if I do that. How bad will that affect my score?

besides my credit cards I have a car loan and that's it. I do have a BK7 from April 2018 but not sure if that matters

[lhcole77]

You will definitely take a hit for having the card maxed out. Anything over 88.9% is maxed.

But you may get points from all cards reporting $0 except the maxed out card.

Add those two together and you'll still take a hit.

[blindambition]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I'm looking for some advice.....

I have a BECU card that has a 0% promo on balance transfers right now. I'm thinking about transferring all the balances I have to that card and then everything else would be 0. The catch is that card would pretty much be maxed out if I do that. How bad will that affect my score?

besides my credit cards I have a car loan and that's it. I do have a BK7 from April 2018 but not sure if that matters

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Can you try for a CLI on BECU? Possibly cushioning the utilization hit you'll get.

[Anonymous]

I did try and it was declined. I've only had the card for 3 months. Does anyone one if they combine cards?

[Heatt99]

IMO, balance transfer to save on the interest. Pay more on the card over the next 6 months to get it down below 60%, and scores should be ok.

Don't add more debt to others cards, keep them at zero, then apply for another CU card to pad Utilization.

1 card with high usage is not as bad as several cards with a balance.

[pinkandgrey]

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@Heatt99 wrote:

IMO, balance transfer to save on the interest. Pay more on the card over the next 6 months to get it down below 60%, and scores should be ok.

Don't add more debt to others cards, keep them at zero, then apply for another CU card to pad Utilization.

1 card with high usage is not as bad as several cards with a balance.

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I have to say I agree with this. A maxed card is never a good thing, but if you can pay it down quickly (which you should be able to do now that you're not paying all those other cards), you will save money on interest. 

Just try to get it under 88% ASAP! 

Good luck! 

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for your input!  I am going to go ahead with the transfers and also look into possibly combining my two BECU cards essentially for a CLI maybe