Discover Balance Transfer Question

[Mland-EC]

My other 19 year old just received this offer. His credit isn't advancing as well as his twin sisters, but with no security deposit and for a first credit card account at 11 months his CL is 2500.00 already. This isn't as good as the offer his sister received a month or so  ago, still it shows how the offers are all over the place:

[SouthJamaica]

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@Mland-EC wrote:

First, my Discover Limit was 3K about 7 months ago, today it is 14K. They gave me an auto one day. I wake up and have an 8K limit(5 k increase). Then I ask 45 days later ask for an increase and they approve me another 2k now I am at a 10K limit. So few months go by and I am in Dec.

I did a balance transfer to checking in Dec 2020 for 9K and that time as I said my limit was 10K. I had a 450.00 used on the card when asked so I owed very near my entire limit after that BT.

I chose the no fee 3%(some months it's 4%) because I knew I was going to pay it back fast. Well I did pay it back fast, I paid the balance all the way down to 2K by next cycle.

The next day I ask for a CLI and I get 2 K more making my limit 12K. The very next day I ask for another Balance transfer and take another 9K. So now I owe 11k on a 12k limit. Again, I pay back by next cycle this time leaving a 3 k balance. Next day I ask for another CLI, they gave me another 2k so now my Credit limit is 14K and I owe 3K on the card.

I tell this story for two reasons, One to say Discover is the easiest to get CLI FOR ME. Heck, Cap one gave me 1K after having the same CL for years using it almost to the full limit, paying it off, having different balances not paying it all off, paying to zero, etc etc. Every combination of things to try to get a CLI. Finally they offer 1K so in the end I take it(that is another story) and know it will be 6 months to possibly get another.

Second, my question:

Anyone have any insight on to how many times I can ask for these balance transfers to checking in a row without raising some kind of red flag or the transfer being denied?

I was going to ask for another 9k today and thought maybe I should look into it. I may pay another 1k to 2K before I ask again simply so it shows I am making ground on reducing the balance and not having progressively higher balances every time I ask for BT.

The reason I ask for these BT to Checking was never to get a CLI, it was just a byproduct of paying it back soon, I think.

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My experience with Discover was that they didn't mind.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Remedios wrote:

I looked to see what's in my account in terms of BT offers, and first one is just "normal" 0% apr for 12 months with 5% fee. 

Second one is a bit more of a head scratcher, so "more time" is 15 months, apr 3.99% with 5% fee. 

I really cannot see for whom that would work better, especially with "more time" being only three months longer 🤷‍♀️

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I used to get 2 balance transfer offers each month, one that had 0% interest and a balance transfer fee, and one -- labeled "more time" -- with a modest interest rate (3.99% or 4.99%) and no balance transfer fee.

After Covid hit they went over a year and a half extending to me no BT offers at all.  A couple of weeks ago they started extending a single BT offer on one of my cards ... 0% interest + balance transfer fee.

[Mland-EC]

So only a single offer? Not the two choices? I have not heard of that sinceI started this thread.

It is apparant to me now Discover tailors these offers to the indivual, I think that is the 7th different type offer I have seen. I always thought the Credit Card Companies gave these offers and they were the same for everyone  that recieved the offers.

[SoCalGardener]

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@SouthJamaica wrote:

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I used to get 2 balance transfer offers each month, one that had 0% interest and a balance transfer fee, and one -- labeled "more time" -- with a modest interest rate (3.99% or 4.99%) and no balance transfer fee.

After Covid hit they went over a year and a half extending to me no BT offers at all.  A couple of weeks ago they started extending a single BT offer on one of my cards ... 0% interest + balance transfer fee.

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Interesting. I continued getting BT offers from Discover throughout the pandemic. Mine were similar to the two you posted first, i.e., one had 0% interest plus a fee, and the other was 'more time' with a modest interest rate, BUT also with a fee.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Mland-EC wrote:

So only a single offer? Not the two choices? I have not heard of that sinceI started this thread.

It is apparant to me now Discover tailors these offers to the indivual, I think that is the 7th different type offer I have seen. I always thought the Credit Card Companies gave these offers and they were the same for everyone  that recieved the offers.

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Now I'm getting 2 offers on 1 card, and 1 offer on the other.

Unfortunately, all 3 have a 5% balance transfer fee, which is a no-go for me.

[SoCalGardener]

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@SoCalGardener wrote:

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@SouthJamaica wrote:

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I used to get 2 balance transfer offers each month, one that had 0% interest and a balance transfer fee, and one -- labeled "more time" -- with a modest interest rate (3.99% or 4.99%) and no balance transfer fee.

After Covid hit they went over a year and a half extending to me no BT offers at all.  A couple of weeks ago they started extending a single BT offer on one of my cards ... 0% interest + balance transfer fee.

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Interesting. I continued getting BT offers from Discover throughout the pandemic. Mine were similar to the two you posted first, i.e., one had 0% interest plus a fee, and the other was 'more time' with a modest interest rate, BUT also with a fee.

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So I'm quoting myself!   I no sooner posted the above than I got a BT offer from Discover: one for 12 months at 0% with a 4% fee, and one for 15(?) months at 6.99% with NO FEE. Go figure!!

[Mland-EC]

Yep, that's similar to the one  I am seeing right now.

I just now processed my tenth BT to checking  in a row. So far no end in sight.
This month I made some great  sales and paid down the 12K to 0.00. Then processed another 10K BT to checking.

Utilzation will hit 8.9% from 12% from this and some other payments so I expect to jump into the 790's and it is all thanks to this forum!

[Mland-EC]

Okay I am on my 14th balance transfer to checking in a row with Discover.  I ask for 9k to 13K and so far able to pay it back within  the first month, many times right on closing day. I leave a 900.00  to  3000.00 balance on the Discover card when I pay it. Right now my balance is at 1200.00. I use that advance to pay all my other cards to zero or very near zero and to keep from having a balance on my high rate cards, some as much as 24%, my husband has some at 29.9%!. All my cards average out  at about 20% range , they range from 14.9% to as high as 24%. The advance to checking  has cost me  39.43  to 44.76 a month in interest(no fee option every time) for an overall average of 42.00 a month in interest and average rate of about 3%(different deals certain months). My discover limit is up to 17K from 2k at one point when it was new. I believe in the last 14 months it went from 9K to 17K, don't quote me on that though.

Since I started doing this balance transfer to checking I saved about 281.00 in interest.  3K a month balance on average at 3%(for the advance on average) verse 20%(CC cards on average) over 14 months. More importantly at the time my cash flow was low and that  advance allowed me to pay all other cards to zero and eveything on time. Many times  I was not paid weekly and I had to wait a month, the advance allowed me to pay things I  might not have been able to pay on time and definitly not be able to pay down enough to assit my utilization. There were a couple times over the 14 months where my utilization would have been very high if not for the advance to pay CC down. Of course that would only ding me unitl I could pay the bills down, but the advance kept my score higher, artifically higher or not, from 760 to 815. I figure if I was caught a month where I could not pay 13K back my score may have gone to the 720's, maybe lower at the start when my total available credit was much lower than now.

It may not be for everyone and this advance is more an experiment than anything else, but heck I saved 281.00 in interest and kept the action on all my cards. I believe this action is a large part why every single card increased my limit in these 14 months. I could drop 5K on one card and use the advance  to pay it and did so with every card here and there. Once one limit was rasied on one card I started action on the next card or two for a month or so, asked for an increase, received it and moved on.
 
Oops except for Barclay's(13K limit 8 years old) and Merrick(3K limit 7 years old). There is just nothing  I could do to get them to raise that lime without  a hard pull.

Recently we have been doing well workwise and now after these 14 months we are in a position to pay the last 13K advance and not "need"  another one to keep my utilization low(currently at 1%). Our checking accout is now back to pre covid state too, higher even. Going from owing the mortage company 6 months back payments which was allowed over Covid and coming back out of that with the highest credit score ever and everything  paid up was due to hard work, 70 plus hours a week from both of us, but in a large part how we organized and paid our bills to gain the highest credit Score  was due to the information on this forum.

It is crazy that a person can owe the same amount, make the same amount, but not knowing how credit works have a FICO score point differential of over 100 points just by paying things a certain way and asking for limit increasescredit (for us adn our credit experiment to raise it utilization seemed to be the key more than anything else, aks for those limit raises!) . Working hard and being able to have a job at all of course plays a part and we are thankful for that,  but the knowledge gained on this fourm is what made our scores rise.