Banks that give 0% APR upon asking on existing CC

[omgitsMatt]

I don't know about _asking_, but here is a list of ones that consistently offer promotional rates on existing cards that I've personally seen.

- NFCU, but it's hit or miss and I've never personally had an offer, but I know of tons of data points here in these forums.

- Citi

- Wells Fargo

- US Bank

- KeyBank

- Discover

- Two of my local credit unions and nearly every year for the last six years around January.

There are plenty that consistently offer promos for existing card holders, but I'm unfamiliar with which ones will possibly give a promotional rate if you _ask_. That's an interesting question too

[Total_Synergy]

^^This^^, what @omgitsMatt said.  I would also add BofA, Chase and possibly Citizens Bank and PenFed to his list.  It's basically mostly the Big 5 banks, Big 2 FCUs, plus a few others that have sufficient financial depth, resources or tolerance to initiate offers regularly or to respond with a 0% or Low% BT (+ BT Fee of course ). 

Expanding my direct thread answer above with some additional BT thoughts:

I've built my (and P2's) 'non-cashback' portion of our $0 AF card portfolios on just such a strategy, and have had continuous options available for several years now (separate from opening new cards of course).  The goal is to have a cashback and a BT card from each of our lenders and spread it around.  Example:

1. I have BofA 3% Customized Cash for cashback from monthly spend

2. I have BofA 1.5% Unlimited for ongoing BTs (a 'BT card' can be a less rewarding cashback card that gets BT offers.  In lieu of BofA BankAmericard that earns nothing.  My P2 has Customized Cash and BankAmericard)

Just like with planting crops, some of your BT cards might be carrying a balance while others lie fallow (empty).  After 6-12 months of non-use the lender sends you BT offers, which you can use either for 'fresh debt' or for 'rollover debt from other BT cards from different lenders'.  Paying off in full, criss-crossing the debt, allowing small remainder balances to pay a couple dollars of interest to the lender - it all works to keep the dogs on the scent and eager to lend you more $ (and always get CLIs after paying off a BT card to $0, in order to prep for the next cycle). 

Not judging the wisdom of the BT game or even carrying debt, just saying there is a right(er) way to do it vs. the wrong way.  Build your 'BT card portfolio' in parallel with your Team Travel or Team Cashback portfolio, and in advance of any need...  Keep your utilization within bounds and pay on time and the lenders will view you as an easy mark to make 3-5% of low-risk interest from.  Which is more than they make from one's PIF practices on their rewards cards.  Don't let the "something for nothing/freebie crowd" naysayers dissuade you: as a borrower you will have access to BT credit lent at decent-enough low rates compared to fixed rate loans, PLOCs, HELOCs, etc.  No free lunches, but a goodly supply of discounted/subsidized lunches. 

[omgitsMatt]

Citizen's for sure should be added to the list, I just opened a mailer right after my post in fact but was busy and didn't feel like circling back to edit at the time.

I've seen PenFed for sure too now that you mention it and also BoA.

This would be a good stand alone thread if someone ever organized it, if it hasn't already  been done

Something like "A list of CCs that offer promotional rates to existing members" etc. would be a very useful thread for a percentage of the community.

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@Total_Synergy wrote:

^^This^^, what @omgitsMatt said.  I would also add BofA, Chase and possibly Citizens Bank and PenFed to his list.  It's basically mostly the Big 5 banks, Big 2 FCUs, plus a few others that have sufficient financial depth, resources or tolerance to initiate offers regularly or to respond with a 0% or Low% BT (+ BT Fee of course ).

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[omgitsMatt]

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@Total_Synergy wrote:

I've built my (and P2's) 'non-cashback' portion of our $0 AF card portfolios on just such a strategy, and have had continuous options available for several years now (separate from opening new cards of course).  The goal is to have a cashback and a BT card from each of our lenders and spread it around.

Just like with planting crops, some of your BT cards might be carrying a balance while others lie fallow (empty).  After 6-12 months of non-use the lender sends you BT offers, which you can use either for 'fresh debt' or for 'rollover debt from other BT cards from different lenders'.  Paying off in full, criss-crossing the debt, allowing small remainder balances to pay a couple dollars of interest to the lender - it all works to keep the dogs on the scent and eager to lend you more $ (and always get CLIs after paying off a BT card to $0, in order to prep for the next cycle). 

Not judging the wisdom of the BT game or even carrying debt, just saying there is a right(er) way to do it vs. the wrong way.  Build your 'BT card portfolio' in parallel with your Team Travel or Team Cashback portfolio, and in advance of any need...

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I’m going to share some thoughts on this too, because I think it’s an interesting point and on topic with the original post, minus the “upon asking” caveat. I think this deserves its own thread in my opinion, but I don’t know if there is one that’s not outdated.

Anyways, I also focused on picking up non-cashback $0 AF cards that would consistently give consistent promotional rates, the difference between me and @Total_Synergy  is, I didn’t split the difference between those kinds of cards and rewards cards evenly, my goal was 80/20 on picking up the non-cashback $0 AF cards that would consistently give consistent promotional rates.

I won’t judge the wisdom of carrying debt or playing the BT game either, but like what was said earlier, there’s a right(er) way to do things if this is anyone’s strategy. At that time financially, that’s what was most beneficial to me. Now that I’m solvent, I’m more worried about other things like investing in my households’ retirement accounts heavily and building my LLC.

Here's a revised list of the lenders TS and I noted below, but there’s going to be far more than this out there, maybe someone will create a dedicated thread for this someday.

• PenFed
• Chase
• Citizens Bank
• Chase
• Citi
• Wells Fargo
• BofA
• US Bank
• KeyBank
• Discover
• NFCU
• (Plenty of smaller and regional CUs)

I have something with all those on this list except Chase, which I’ll never be eligible for unless I go into a coma and wake up two years later.

A big part of my strategy is to make sure I do what’s needed to keep the algorithms from decreasing my credit limits and satisfying the algorithms enough so I can get consistent CLIs on the most fruitful and consistent ones on that list. TS explained their strategy for building CLIs on those accounts well so I won't ramble about that to much, but it’s wise to research how individual lenders reward CLIs and doles out CLDs, they’re all different to a degree.

My favorite lenders are NFCU, Wells Fargo and the two CU credit cards I have.

Wells Fargo:

Wells Fargo will reward you with large credit limits if you carry a balance over a period with them and you show consistent payments well beyond the minimum while eventually paying the balance down.  The algorithm will chase down your credit limit if you just do the minimum for far too long.

I won’t get to into it too much because it’s talked about real well HERE where you can control the odds in your favor of getting large spending limits on new promotional credit cards and on this post HERE, I was able to prove the limits can get quite large ($41,400) on a Reflect if you do things just right.

There are rules and they need researched every so often because policies change, but you won’t qualify for a new Reflect promotional rate until it’s been 48 months after opening it. Same goes for the Autograph and Active Cash. There are quite a few other rules that are crucial, such as they’ll take limits from an existing card to give to a new card if that existing card has either a $0 balance and/or hasn’t been used for six months. If you know that… you’ll carry a nominal balance when you apply for the new card and cycle the card use to a degree before applying, to avoid that as best you can.

You could hop back and forth between Reflect, Autograph and Active Cash while maintaining your high credit limit every time if you balance it right. It worked for me for a while.

NFCU:

NFCU has a very similar set up, but the rules are slightly different. You can request credit limit reallocations to new accounts, if the existing account is over a year old. You can only have three cards, but if you close one of your three cards, taking you down to two… you can apply for a new NFCU card and get the promotional rate for a new card, and have the limits you need too no less. I talk about how it worked out for me HERE.

Regional CU CCs:

Then, I have two cards ($15k and $20k) with a small and regional CU that offers promotional rates twice a year on average, and only one year did it only offer it once (that year was around covid shut downs, lenders were wary). If they don’t do it and I still need a card to use, I still have an APR of 8.25% on both cards, so it’s bearable for a short period of time until I work something else out.

Misc. Accounts:

Finally, I have a fleet of cards that offer consistent promotional rates to existing customers, so there’s always something available somewhere if I look.

Rewards Accounts: 

Since TS shared how they balance setting up consistent promotional rates from existing cards and taking advantage of rewards, I'll share what I do too for rewards.

I absolutely don't have the patience to do this well and more importantly didn’t have the luxury to split the difference when applying for accounts between maximizing promotional interest rates and rewards. 

I use my Alliant 2.5% CB for everything except for hotel expenses. Nothing exciting.

[omgitsMatt]

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@omgitsMatt wrote:

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@Total_Synergy wrote:

I've built my (and P2's) 'non-cashback' portion of our $0 AF card portfolios on just such a strategy, and have had continuous options available for several years now (separate from opening new cards of course).  The goal is to have a cashback and a BT card from each of our lenders and spread it around.

Just like with planting crops, some of your BT cards might be carrying a balance while others lie fallow (empty).  After 6-12 months of non-use the lender sends you BT offers, which you can use either for 'fresh debt' or for 'rollover debt from other BT cards from different lenders'.  Paying off in full, criss-crossing the debt, allowing small remainder balances to pay a couple dollars of interest to the lender - it all works to keep the dogs on the scent and eager to lend you more $ (and always get CLIs after paying off a BT card to $0, in order to prep for the next cycle). 

Not judging the wisdom of the BT game or even carrying debt, just saying there is a right(er) way to do it vs. the wrong way.  Build your 'BT card portfolio' in parallel with your Team Travel or Team Cashback portfolio, and in advance of any need...

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I’m going to share some thoughts on this too, because I think it’s an interesting point and on topic with the original post, minus the “upon asking” caveat. I think this deserves its own thread in my opinion, but I don’t know if there is one that’s not outdated.

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That was my strategy to get the 0% APR as consistently possible, as I was unaware of anyone that would give you that promotional rate upon asking and I only just learned Discover will even do that by this thread.

[crystal626]

You guys are talking about BTs. OP was talking about purchase APR. Discover is the only one I've ever gotten a second 0% on purchases from on the same card (in fact, I've asked and received two or three times now). 

[TrapLine]

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@crystal626 wrote:

Discover is the only one that's ever let me ask them for one, the others randomly decide to send me emails about it (which the last one to do so was Capital One for 0% for 6 months on my SavorOne I never use).

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Aw com'mon now Crystal, Cap1 wants account usage!!! 

[Total_Synergy]

Thank you @crystal626 - reviewing the original post I believe you are correct: the ask was for other lenders besides Discover that would offer 0% APR on new purchases if requested.  As a Discover cardholder myself, I agree that they are the only card I know about that meets this ask.  They are also the only card that offers $100 cashback-over-purchases (think getting cash at the grocery store) per day (~$3,000/month) with the cash treated as a normal purchase subject to 0% grace period if you PIF (rather than a cash advance).  Those are the 2 unique things about Discover and I hope it doesn't end with the Capital One merger.

But @xenon3030 also mused about possibly using BT offers as a back-up solution to 0% Purchase APR, and I think that is what myself, @omgitsMatt and others were addressing.  My current portfolio is 7 BT-oriented cards & 12 cashback cards.  My P2 is 7 BT-oriented cards & 6 cashback cards (+ 4 AU cards of mine).  I got in the BT game to support her, and she got in to support a family member in need.  Just saying there can be a big-picture strategy to the BT game, seperate from "team cashback vs team trave and always PIF", which is where 98% of the forum time is devoted. 

Folks asking the forums for BT ideas are often already in the middle of a bad situation and basically hoping to snag one card with a high enough limit to save them.  We know that often doesn't happen, and furthermore what happens if you can't pay off that one card at the end of the offer and need rapidly secure a second card with possibly current high utilization?  So pre-planning and obtaining a cluster of cards for future BTs is what I was trying to promote, and what @omgitsMatt is proposing becomes some sort of sub-thread or sticky.

Again, these myFICO forums are the only reliable source (sorry Reddit and YouTube) of practical and specific information to help people looking for such answers, so if not here, where? 

[Total_Synergy]

Hi @crystal626 - you are correct, the original ask from @xenon3030 was for 0% APR from lenders upon request.  As a Discover cardholder, I agree with you that they are the only one I know of that does this. 

But later in the original post the idea of using BTs as an approach was mentioned and that is what I and @omgitsMatt were referencing (and by extension, our philosophy of BTs, the need for pre-planning a cluster of BT-oriented cards in advance of needing them and perhaps starting a sticky thread on BT stuff).  Like others, I hope Capital One doesn't nerf Discover after the merger... 

[cchunter]

Congrats, I just requested mine and I've been approved. Thank you