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Best strategy to get approved for balance transfer cards

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Anonymous
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Best strategy to get approved for balance transfer cards

Hello!

 

Been reading a lot of threads and it seems there is some good advice so here it goes:

 

I had an adverse life event and then went back to grad school which resulted in accumulating 25k in CC debt. I am now starting a job where I will make a salary of 120k+ and should be able to shed this debt quickly but I really want to transfer balances to low (hopefully zero!) APR cards and I want to maximize my chances of actually getting approved for these cards.

 

My FICO score is currently 698 (down from 709 a few months ago which I think resulted from credit checks for employment and renting a new apartment when I moved) and I am looking at 4 cards: Chase Slate, Disvover It, Capital One Prestige and City Simplicity. The latter two have average approval scores of 687 and 701 versus 730 for the first two, so it seems even at my current credit score I am in the range for two of them.

 

I basically have two questions: 1) Should I apply for credit right now or wait a month or two until I have had a few paychecks come in in order to prove a new higher salary? 2) When I apply, is there any benefit to calling when I apply (or doing so at a physical branch) in order to help explain the situation?

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Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Best strategy to get approved for balance transfer cards

I actually just got my credit score from free credit report (the FICO is from my Discover card statement) and see they are 716, 703 and 715 for Experian, Equifax and Transunion. Not sure why they are different but these scores seem better. Not sure if that changes the calculus at all but figured i should update this.

Message 2 of 4
takeshi74
Senior Contributor

Re: Best strategy to get approved for balance transfer cards

It's really no different than it is for other cards.  High utilization will impact your credit and make it difficult to get higher limits, lower APR's and possibly even approvals.  See also:

http://www.myfico.com/crediteducation/whatsinyourscore.aspx

 

Utilization falls under "Amounts owed" and as you can see it plays a major role in scoring.

 


@Anonymous wrote:

I had an adverse life event and then went back to grad school which resulted in accumulating 25k in CC debt.


25K sounds high but what is your utilization?

 


@Anonymous wrote:

Not sure why they are different


Scoring model and differences in data used to generate the score (whether due to pulling data from different CRA's and/or on different dates) can all affect scoring.

 

Freecreditreport doesn't provide FICO's and even with FICO's there are a number of different scoring models in use.

Message 3 of 4
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Best strategy to get approved for balance transfer cards

It is high Smiley Sad, 75% utilization.

 

I ended up applying for a few cards and got approved for the Cap One Venture w/ 15k limit which should really help my utilization (and which I will only be using for reimbursable business expenses), and Chase Slate approved me for a measly $500 so hoping maybe they can increase that, or I can max it and pay it off for a few months in order to do that. Got rejected for the Discover iT card.

 

Maybe the best strategy is to suck it up for a few months and get my utilization under 50% and apply for some different balance transfer cards?

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