Balance transfer question ...... help?

[Anonymous]

Hello.  I have a BOA Visa with a $2000 limit, $1382.85 balance and a finance charge rate of 13.99%.  I also have a local credit union MC with a limit of $5000, $880.85 balance and a finance charge rate of 6.90%.

I have called the credit union and verified that there is no fees to do a cash advance on my MC.  I have no problem paying either of these bills each month, have no lates, etc., however, with all I have been hearing about BOA I suddenly have this desire to have them out of my life.  Is there any reason I am not thinking of to not pay off the Visa with the MC?  Would this also not help my FICO score since right now I have .69% useage on the Visa but will only have .45% on the MC even after I do this?

Thoughts or wisdom from anyone on the above?

Thank you. 

[Creditaddict]

I like paying one person vs paying 2 and if you can save money I would vote yes.

[oracles]

Hi Ponderous

I would definitely do it, not because of the recent actions with bofa but because you would save money having the balance on the cu card instead of the boa card. Also your score may increase alittle since one card will be reporting, as oppose to two and the one card will have under 50% util instead of boa having over 50%.

But make sure your cash advance % is the 6.9% and not some other %. usually the cash advance % is higher. Make sure of the %.

Also if you are thinking of closing the bofa card, dont. It is still helping util5 and aaoa.

hope this helps and keep us updated

[Anonymous]

I would definitely not close the BOA card. I did call the CU and asked very specific questions as well as printed out the detailed information from online. There are no cash advance fees and the rate is the same....6.90% I have decided to go for it. Thank you for the input, it is appreciated!

Message Edited by ponderous on 02-20-2009 01:55 PM

[Anonymous]

Another reason to move away from BA is that they have these really long statement periods of 35 days that they calculate interest on, every single month.  Your billing cycle and your statement cycle are less than 35 days.

This tactic was learned during some investigation work done on/with BA.  They refunded my client the bogus interest charges, but it took some work to figure out exactly how they REALLY calculated the interest vs what they reported.

Please take this with a grain of salt -- I am just one person with BA experience.

If you are curious, call them up and ask for the formula to figure out the interest.  Then apply your numbers to it.  They probably wont' match.    I had the bank managers doing it -- and they could not get the interest charges to add up correctly.  Neither could the cc dept.  No one could.  With a little applied logic, a lot of bank statements, the rule of thumb appeared to be that every interest cycle was 35 days long...

This has been the case with several clients.  It may not be happening to you.

Credit unions are generally much more honest and ethical to deal with banks.

If you have any questions, or want more information about my specific experiences, please send a private message.

In my opinion, get away from BA! 

[Anonymous]

Oh - one more thing.  Please realize credit charges incur interest charges differently than balance transfers. 

Financial institutions usually will apply all payments to the lowest generating stuff first.  In this case, the payments will be applied towards the current charges, not the balance transfer.  The balance transfer incurs charges daily.

It's still a good move to make -- lower overall interest rate, easier to make payments, and away from BA. 

[Anonymous]

I was aware of the difference in how charges are calculated, but knew this was still going to be a money saver for me.  I have done the transaction.  Now I am wondering how long I should give it for all of this to catch up with my credit report?  I suspect the increase on the MC will be noted sooner then the pay off of the Visa.  What would be a safe time frame to wait to run my reports and check for all the changes to be reported?

[Anonymous]

If you carried a balance from month to month with BA, you may receive one more residual bill for interest, even though you paid off the balance.

Usually, the cc/banks update once a month to the CRA's. 

[Anonymous]

I have no doubt I will have one more very small payment, I am expecting that.

Thank you for the answer to my question.  I suppose to play it safe I will wait until April 1st before I do a check see.