Ok, so here's my dilemma or issue.
I need to do a major bathroom renovation - the whole thing needs to be demo'ed, right down to the studs. I figure that I'll need to put probably about $10 - $12k on credit cards. There's some equity in the house, but not that much (I only bought it a few years ago) so a home equity loan may not be possible, which is why I'm looking for the best 0%/promo interest cards. I'd like suggestions and thoughts on what people have experienced with some of the cards I'm considering. The contractor I'm using sources his stuff from contractor supply stores, such as Ferguson's for plumbing, The Tile Shop for tile, etc. - nothing from Home Depot or Lowes. I have reasonably decent credit (Fico score of 788). I didn't apply for Ferguson's financing offer, because their "promotional deal" for purchases over $799 is a flat rate of 29.99% with nothing special (super disappointing!).
In general, assuming nothing changes with my income (I'm a single parent), I will be able to put about $1,000 a month towards the credit cards through the rest of 2016, and about $700/month in 2017. I do think that some of the plumbing supplies can be found cheaper through online sites than at the plumbing supply store my contractor uses, which makes cards offering price protection also attractive.
1. Amex Blue Cash: is offering 0% for 12 months. If I put at least $1,000 in charges on it, there's a cashback reward of $250, plus the ordinary 1% rewards for all purchases.
2. Chase Freedom: is offering 0% for 15 months. There's a sign up bonus of $150, and cashback on purchases of 1.5%.
3. Citi Simplicity: is offering 0% for 21 months. There are no rewards, but it has the longest 0% interest offer that I'm aware of out there. They also reportedly have the best price-protection program, and I already know that just for some of the plumbing stuff, there's over $200 in items that is priced better elsewhere than at the contractor's plumbng supply store.
4. Discover IT Cashback Match: 0% for 12 months, 1% cashback, with the first-year cashback doubled. So, in effect, it's like 2% back for the first year.
5. Wells Fargo Home Rebate Signature: 0% for 15 months. Rebate of 1%. This is who my mortgage is with; whenever the cashback earned is $25 or more, they will apply it to my mortgage principal. Which, in theory, I could do myself with any other card, so I'm not inclined to apply for this card right now.
I'm considering taking a few cards and structuring the bathroom renovation expenses as follows in order to maximize sign-up bonuses, cash rebates, and price matchings.
1. Amex: First $1,000 on there, with the casback, I'll only end up needing to pay about $750.
2. Citi Simplicity: I'm thinking of putting the majority of the items that are easy for cost comparison here... especially the items I know can be found cheaper elsewhere.. I've already identified 18 out of the first 31 items on the plumbing supply store's list as being cheaper elsewhere, so that's a potential price-match of over $200 already.. There's at least another 27 items for me to evaluate.
3. Chase Freedom: Considring putting some of the items that aren't easy for price matching on this, because of the $150 sign up bonus and the 1.5% cashback. There's another $25 if I add an authorized user. (Can a 10-year-old be added as an authorized user?)
Thoughts? Thanks in advance. I'm thinking of leaving the Discover and Wells Fargo cards for another time, or in case for any reason I can't pay off all of bathroom remodeling costs by the end of the promo periods, so that I might do a balance transfer (if needed).
Starting Score: 2014 775
Sounds like a plan! I did a lot of subbing on the outside for pavers, landscaping, etc. Here in FL, there's not many experienced contractors who take cc's. I had to pay with a personal check. When you do find the contractors, make sure they accept cc's. Those guys took a big chunk out of my savings! And it will be cheaper to hire each individual project out at a time. There's no putting their fees on top of anothers. Good luck and hope all goes well. 
I had figured that I might not need to go for the Discover card right away, in part because I already have three open credit card lines with Discover already, and I usually only use one or two of them at a time (rotating use). But it's good to know that the home improvement category is a featured category come July, in case there are still things that the contractor needs to get - but we're planning a start in mid-June. One reason is because there is a small leak going from the bathroom shower to the utility room below whenever the shower is used, so we've already been waiting and hoping it doesn't get worse. Another is that Moen gave me a rebate offer for 10% off of any of their items - but it expires at the end of June. The Moen products alone will run about $5,100... so that's worth pushing to get those items in during June.
I know that my general contractor will need to be paid in cash for his services, which are broken out separately from supplies. I can pay the bulk of supplies with credit cards, and as far as labor for him and his team, I've got about $18,000 in cash savings, and am setting aside about $1,500 a month this year to add to my cash savings for this project.
I'll double check the two Freedom cards (regular vs. unlimited), thanks for the heads up on that.
Obviously, if I can use 0% interest on purchases, that's better than 0% on Balance transfers, since most BT's are 3% - 5% in fees of the transferred balance. 
I'll think about adding my kiddo as an AU
Thanks for the tip I know it would be cheaper if I was my own general contractor and hired each one directly, but with the nature of the project (it's actually both of the bathrooms), we want to make sure everything falls in line so that we minimize the time without showering/bathing facilities. I've got about $18k saved up in cash for anything I can't use my credit cards on. And yeah, doing both bathrooms pretty much at the same time... we'll need good luck Thanks!
Good point about utilization. I have to remember that scores are based both on utilization within a CL as well as across CL's. I have enough open CC's with high limits that I'm not too worried about the overal CC utilization rate - I typically keep the utilization rates pretty low on my current cards - last credit report, total balance of $283 spread out over a total credit card limit of $121,050, a total credit card utilization rate of 0.2%. I know my credit will take a big hit when I make apply for 3 new cards and then make all the supply purchases, but that part should be relatively temporary as I pay things down again.
| balance | cl |
| 23 | 10000 |
| 0 | 22500 |
| 0 | 9000 |
| 0 | 9400 |
| 0 | 3700 |
| 0 | 1000 |
| 180 | 17500 |
| 0 | 12000 |
| 0 | 6700 |
| 0 | 4700 |
| 0 | 11200 |
| 80 | 4250 |
| 0 | 9100 |
| 283 | 121050 |
@helaurin wrote:Good point about utilization. I have to remember that scores are based both on utilization within a CL as well as across CL's. I have enough open CC's with high limits that I'm not too worried about the overal CC utilization rate - I typically keep the utilization rates pretty low on my current cards - last credit report, total balance of $283 spread out over a total credit card limit of $121,050, a total credit card utilization rate of 0.2%. I know my credit will take a big hit when I make apply for 3 new cards and then make all the supply purchases, but that part should be relatively temporary as I pay things down again.
balance cl 23 10000 0 22500 0 9000 0 9400 0 3700 0 1000 180 17500 0 12000 0 6700 0 4700 0 11200 80 4250 0 9100 283 121050
Personally with all those cards, and available limits, I wouldn't be adding cards.
Don't you have any decent balance transfer offers in there, so that you could use whatever card you want for the purchases, then just switch it over later?
I have a few balance transfer offers - ranging from 3% to 5%. I'm looking to immediately minimize interest charges. I just applied for the three cards I wanted - and got approved for all three. And none of them have the purchase price protection that Citi Simplicity offers.
Citi Simplicity, $6500
Chase Freedom, $22,000
Amex Blue, $11,000
Now all I need is for the cards to hurry up and get here so that I can get things ordered for the remodel!