Looking for a good 0% intro offer

[Anonymous]

Capital One has a platinum prestige card that has 0% APR on purchases and balance transfers until July 2012.  As much as I'm annoyed that my CL on my regular platinum (which I got a long time ago, it's my oldest account) is stuck eternally at $500, I do need a 0% purchase card and I need as long an intro period as possible.  Is there some other card I should consider?

[Anonymous]

Oh, also, if I were to go on an app spree, what kind of timeline is recommended?  I have some recent inquiries - they're almost all mortgage-related.

[tntexans72]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Oh, also, if I were to go on an app spree, what kind of timeline is recommended?  I have some recent inquiries - they're almost all mortgage-related.

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Well, hopefully your multiple mortgage apped was within 15 days of each other - to be counted as 1 inquiry hard.

Do your homework at myfico and find out what cards ppl get approved for base on what fico score etc...and which banks pull what CB (TU, EX, EQ) to have a better success rate and CL.

For example, Barclays pulls TU and mostly TU, CITI pulled EQ for me in Texas. It could be a different CB base on your location. So make sure you do a little research before going on your app spree if you want a high success rate of approval. I can't stress that enough.

I apped for 6 cards last month after laying low for 1yr and was approved for 5 cards. One lender said I had too many inquiries. All pulled EQ for me except for Barclays. That's why I was declined for one, cause that lender also pulled EQ.

I did my apped spree within 7 days and I made sure my Fico falls between the guidelines of the lenders. Good luck !!

[MarineVietVet]

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@tntexans72 wrote:

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Well, hopefully your multiple mortgage apped was within 15 days of each other - to be counted as 1 inquiry hard.

Do your homework at myfico and find out what cards ppl get approved for base on what fico score etc...and which banks pull what CB (TU, EX, EQ) to have a better success rate and CL.

For example, Barclays pulls TU and mostly TU, CITI pulled EQ for me in Texas. It could be a different CB base on your location. So make sure you do a little research before going on your app spree if you want a high success rate of approval. I can't stress that enough.

I apped for 6 cards last month after laying low for 1yr and was approved for 5 cards. One lender said I had too many inquiries. All pulled EQ for me except for Barclays. That's why I was declined for one, cause that lender also pulled EQ.

I did my apped spree within 7 days and I made sure my Fico falls between the guidelines of the lenders. Good luck !!

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This isn't quite correct.

FICO scoring has a "de-duplicationwindow" and it looks at your history for the last 12 months, and when it sees two or more hard inqs for the same type of mortgage or auto loan it will ignore all but one of them as far as scoring is concerned. If the lender is using an older FICO scoring model the window is 14 days, if they are using the newest model it can be up to 45 days. Also keep in mind that even though the multiple inqs count as one in FICO scoring, all of the inqs will continue to show on your reports (that is, reports pulled from sites other than myfico) for up to 2 years.

[Anonymous]

My mortgage inquiries are REALLY spread out.  It's not that I don't know better, it's that that's how it worked out.  I have some from November, December, January, and February.  I ended up having to change lenders to get a full 203(k) loan, and I chose to go with a different 203(k) lender when I realized that the first one didn't feel it was necessary to answer questions in a timely fashion - I'm still waiting for him to answer a question I asked him in January and I've got the keys to my new house. 

7 days is a good timeframe?  Good to know.  Is there  a good way to figure out who they pull based on your location?  It seems like it would be hit-or-miss to search the forums here and hope someone's in the same state. 

I'm interested in the AMEX Costco card, PSECU Visa, UMCU Visa, and anything with 0% intro rate.  I've got an unexpected house emergency that may wipe out my reserves and I really want another option. 

[tntexans72]

Shop for the best interest rates for auto and home loans in as short a time frame as possible. There is a pretty cool loophole in the FICO® credit scoring models that give consumers a “free pass” if they want to shop around for auto and mortgage deals. Here’s how it works:

If an inquiry occurs because you applying for auto or mortgage credit (and yes, FICO knows), for the first 30 days that inquiry won’t count at all. After 30 days pass, the FICO scoring model will look to see if there are other auto or mortgage inquiries. If there are multiple inquiries for those types of loans within a 14-day time frame, those multiple inquiries will only count as one inquiry in your score. There are even newer versions of the FICO scoring software that will count auto and mortgage inquiries within a 45 day period as one inquiry in your score. But, to be safe, do your shopping in a 14 day period. Not all lenders are using the most up-to-date FICO scoring software.

http://www.credit.com/rs/vol17.jsp

[MarineVietVet]

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@tntexans72 wrote:

Shop for the best interest rates for auto and home loans in as short a time frame as possible. There is a pretty cool loophole in the FICO® credit scoring models that give consumers a “free pass” if they want to shop around for auto and mortgage deals. Here’s how it works:

If an inquiry occurs because you applying for auto or mortgage credit (and yes, FICO knows), for the first 30 days that inquiry won’t count at all. After 30 days pass, the FICO scoring model will look to see if there are other auto or mortgage inquiries. If there are multiple inquiries for those types of loans within a 14-day time frame, those multiple inquiries will only count as one inquiry in your score. There are even newer versions of the FICO scoring software that will count auto and mortgage inquiries within a 45 day period as one inquiry in your score. But, to be safe, do your shopping in a 14 day period. Not all lenders are using the most up-to-date FICO scoring software.

http://www.credit.com/rs/vol17.jsp

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We are saying the same thing. It depends on which version a lender uses.

My concern was that in your first post you said: Well, hopefully your multiple mortgage apped was within 15 days of each other - to be counted as 1 inquiry hard.

And that can be misleading because it's not all the information available.

From a BK years ago to:
EX - 3/11 pulled by lender- 835, EQ - 2/11-816, TU - 2/11-782

"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem".

[Anonymous]

But more importantly, is there a good source for figuring out what bureau is pulled based on what state I'm in?

[tntexans72]

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@MarineVietVet wrote:

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@tntexans72 wrote:

Shop for the best interest rates for auto and home loans in as short a time frame as possible. There is a pretty cool loophole in the FICO® credit scoring models that give consumers a “free pass” if they want to shop around for auto and mortgage deals. Here’s how it works:

If an inquiry occurs because you applying for auto or mortgage credit (and yes, FICO knows), for the first 30 days that inquiry won’t count at all. After 30 days pass, the FICO scoring model will look to see if there are other auto or mortgage inquiries. If there are multiple inquiries for those types of loans within a 14-day time frame, those multiple inquiries will only count as one inquiry in your score. There are even newer versions of the FICO scoring software that will count auto and mortgage inquiries within a 45 day period as one inquiry in your score. But, to be safe, do your shopping in a 14 day period. Not all lenders are using the most up-to-date FICO scoring software.

http://www.credit.com/rs/vol17.jsp

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We are saying the same thing. It depends on which version a lender uses.

My concern was that in your first post you said: Well, hopefully your multiple mortgage apped was within 15 days of each other - to be counted as 1 inquiry hard.

And that can be misleading because it's not all the information available.

From a BK years ago to:
EX - 3/11 pulled by lender- 835, EQ - 2/11-816, TU - 2/11-782

"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem".

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When I apped for my mortgage, I apped within 2wks to be sure it's 1 hard. Why push it for 30 days or 45 days? The problem is...we don't know which lenders uses which updated Fico software so to be sure, 2wks time frame is plenty when apping for a mortgage loan IMHO so the score doesn't get ding.

In OR poster's case, it's spread out over months so it's going to be counted as multiple hard IQ.

I orginally did my homework and basd on what I read, there are mixed comments on this subject matter. But the bottom line for me, I made sure it's within 2wks. I don't want to push the envelope and have multiple IQ. It goes back to the old saying...it's better to be safe than sorry. No pun intended.

[Anonymous]

I didn't do it over multiple months because I was unaware, I did it because I had to.