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Should I do a BT or leave as is?

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Anonymous
Not applicable

Should I do a BT or leave as is?

I have a BT offer on my Chase Amazon card (0% until 3/20 with 4% fee). My Amazon card has a 13.5k limit which would be great as far as utilization goes. Offer expires on January 31st. I’m not fond of the 4% fee per say but it is what it is. I’m not sure if this offer would be around later on.

 

I currently have BTs on these cards:

Discover - 2335$/6500 (0% till August 28th) - this will be paid off by the end of the next month)

Amex ED - 3287$/7000 (0% till October 28th) - this will also be paid off by October)

Citi AA - 4264$/7500 (0% till December 1st) - I don’t expect this to be paid off by then as I am prioritizing Discover and Amex since they end sooner.

 

Should I maybe move some of ED and Citi AA over to the Amazon to get their utilization below 29% or should I leave as is since I’m currently not paying any interest on these yet? 

 

I was thinking maybe I could move 1265$ from ED and around 2100$ from Citi to Amazon. This move would allow me to get these cards below 29% utilization. What are your thoughts? 

Message 1 of 15
14 REPLIES 14
Remedios
Credit Mentor

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?

Pay off Disco card, then BT Citi balance to it. Fee will be less. Pay off ED as planned.
In the end, disco may even give you decent CLI, they sure love those BTs.
Message 2 of 15
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?


@Remedios wrote:
Pay off Disco card, then BT Citi balance to it. Fee will be less. Pay off ED as planned.
In the end, disco may even give you decent CLI, they sure love those BTs.

I haven’t gotten a disco BT offer since I BT to the card in July. Idk if that was because I have a BT on it though. Only downside about disco is my limit is only 6500 while my amazon doubles that. 

 

So u think I should just BT all of citi or just enough to get it below 29%?. I think I could pay it off if the balance was around 2k now as opposed of 4K

 

 

Message 3 of 15
Remedios
Credit Mentor

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?

I really dont know. 4% is pretty steep fee.
Is there a possibility of you waiting till ED and Disco are paid off then applying for a decent bt card? You still have time to work on those balances.
Message 4 of 15
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?


@Remedios wrote:
I really dont know. 4% is pretty steep fee.
Is there a possibility of you waiting till ED and Disco are paid off then applying for a decent bt card? You still have time to work on those balances.

Yea certainly. I was thinking about aping for the BOA Americard for the no transfer fee. Idk if I would be approved because BOA has consistently denied me for CLIs for their cards. I have a Cash Rewards at 8.2k and a BBR at 2k.

 

At the same time, I was trying to limit apps this year since I opened 11 cards last year. I suppose I could wait as I should have BTs offers on some of my cards by then.

Message 5 of 15
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?

BT seems only necessary if you need a score boost soon, or if it actually save interest.

If you are not planning to app anything this year, why not just paying all 3 off like you planned?
Message 6 of 15
AverageJoesCredit
Legendary Contributor

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?

If you are going to pay off Ed and Disco before they end anyway and you have til Dec on the Citi AA, i would just let everything ride til then. By December you will have plenty options for bt either via apping another card or even using Disco.
Message 7 of 15
xaximus
Valued Contributor

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?

Personally, I'd leave it alone. You have no interest until for atleast 6 months. Depending on payments, you can knock out all 3 cards without worrying about a BT. I would only do a BT if you need the points (purchasing a house, car, etc.), old BT period ending, CL too low/card maxed, and a few other reasons. In your case, I don't really see any of them checked off. All together, you have about 10k owed on CCs. What is your payment plan setup?



Scores - All bureaus 770 +
TCL - Est. $410K
Message 8 of 15
kdm31091
Super Contributor

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?

I would just leave it alone and pay it off as planned. A 4% fee offer is nothing special at all.
Message 9 of 15
NRB525
Super Contributor

Re: Should I do a BT or leave as is?

OP you are planning to pay about $5,600 of nearly $10,000 on 0% by October, and all these cards have purchase and APR offers at zero % until they start rolling off their introductory offers, correct?

 

If you want to improve FICO score along the way then it seems to me you need to just change up that initial payment of $2,335. Distribute that free money to the cards you want to see below 29%. Don’t use cash to pay off a 0% offer that has several months to run, then turn around and pay 4% to another card to get the same funds back to pay a third card. 

 

Honestly you already have too many zero / new card offers going now, but those apps / choices are in the past. 

 

Getting these cards below 29% will help your FICO score. 

Paying larger amounts on each card will improve your internal score with all three banks.

Take advantage of the zero terms to do both for no additional fee.  

 

The Discover card does not YET have BT offers because it is probably too new. As you pay that one down, target getting it to zero balance at about (or exactly) August 28. Discover BT offers almost always include two versions, a 3% fee for 12 months, and a no-fee BT with a 4.99% APR rate. You switch to regular APR on purchases in both of these, but there should be a BT offer showing up on Discover soon. 

 

And just to to be clear, you do know Discover does not mail these offers, they reside in an area of their website?

High Bal Jan 2009 $116k on $146k limits 80% Util.
Oct 2014 $46k on $127k 36% util EQ 722 TU 727 EX 727
April 2018 $18k on $344k 5% util EQ 806 TU 810 EX 812
Jan 2019 $7.6k on $360k EQ 832 TU 839 EX 831
March 2021 $33k on $312k EQ 796 TU 798 EX 801
May 2021 Paid all Installments and Mortgages, one new Mortgage EQ 761 TY 774 EX 777
April 2022 EQ=811 TU=807 EX=805 - TU VS 3.0 765
Message 10 of 15
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