@tcbofade wrote:It's not a bad idea.... essentially, you're paying money for a better Fico score... which will save you money...
I would check with PenFed's personal loan prequalify tool before pulling the trigger.
Good luck!
I agree. It also commits you to a payment schedule and in the long run you should end up saving much more with additional opportunities likely to open for lower interest borrowing as long as you continue on your payment strategy.
@Expansion wrote:So today on a whim I googled "Upstart personal loan competitors" (or something like that) and clicked on an ad link to Discover personal loans.
I did a soft pull pre-qual thing and got offered $15,000, at 13.99% APR, for 36 months.
(better than the 15.24% on my current loan with Upstart
and the 19.94% Lending Club has been offering).
Monthly payments of $513/month. Which isn't that much more than the extra $400/month I was planning to use to pay down balances.
There were options for longer terms, but all at higher rates.
Then the next screen asked me to call right away. (I checked, this is normal.) It was just after the office closed, so I need to wait until tomorrow.
70% of the loan gets paid directly to the credit cards I'm paying down. 30% can be paid into my account.
I looked at my numbers really carefully.
I could actually use this to get all but one of my balances down to 68% utilization.
And then that last card would just need $386 more to get all the way down to 68% (easy).
For 3 cards it would be a small interest rate reduction. (.25 - 2%)
For 3 cars it would be a small interest rate increase (around 1%)
For 3 cards it would be between 3-5.99% increase.
Combining to about $273 more interest per year.
Normally I would not in a million years think about moving balances to a higher rate and paying more interest.
But if $273 more a year gets this moving, I'm comfortable with that. And if this means I will soon be getting 0% BT offers, then it seems like it would more than pay for itself.
I checked the online reviews. I checked a bunch of posts on these forums too.
Doing my due diligence, I did soft-pull prequals with Apple FCU and NASA FCU (where I am already a member) and both said no offers at this time.
Is there any reason for me not to do this Discover personal loan?
@tcbofade , @SouthJamaica , @FinStar , @K-in-Boston
It seems all right to me. But don't count on getting 0% balance transfer offers pouring in. I don't know where you got that idea from 
Every percent definitely helps. Does the 36 month term from Discover allow the payment to be low enough for you to continue to tackle balances that will still be remaining? Also keep in mind that your DTI ratio may be affected with loans vs minimum revolving payments. As for how long to wait, that is really profile dependent. If taking both loans could save you money and get your balances paid off faster, it may be worth considering both.
@SouthJamaica OP listed quite a number of cards in their first post that should either already have BT offers (but OP would not have available credit to use them) or cards that have a very good chance of offering future BTs like Navy, BOA, Discover, and possibly Citi, Chase, and Wells Fargo. Ideally if OP can open those up and shift the balances from high interest cards to very low or 0% APR BT offers, they should be able to make a significantly larger dent in the balances provided they continue the same payment amounts.
@K-in-Boston wrote:Every percent definitely helps. Does the 36 month term from Discover allow the payment to be low enough for you to continue to tackle balances that will still be remaining? Also keep in mind that your DTI ratio may be affected with loans vs minimum revolving payments. As for how long to wait, that is really profile dependent. If taking both loans could save you money and get your balances paid off faster, it may be worth considering both.
@SouthJamaica OP listed quite a number of cards in their first post that should either already have BT offers (but OP would not have available credit to use them) or cards that have a very good chance of offering future BTs like Navy, BOA, Discover, and possibly Citi, Chase, and Wells Fargo. Ideally if OP can open those up and shift the balances from high interest cards to very low or 0% APR BT offers, they should be able to make a significantly larger dent in the balances provided they continue the same payment amounts.
Maybe so, and I hope that happens, but if they're not being offered now, I wouldn't assume that taking out a loan and paying down some high utilization cards is all of a sudden going to bring them rolling in.
A.) Ur wekkum!
B.) @SouthJamaica is very correct. Opening a personal loan (or two) to play utilization games SHOULD result in higher FICO scores which SHOULD result in more zero percent balance transfer opportunities.
...but nothing is guaranteed.
Please don't put yourself in jeopordy financially hoping for results that don't arrive.
You can do this. Go slowly, pay attention, and measure risk.
Good luck!
Thank you for looking out for me, @tcbofade and @SouthJamaica !
Before I make any of these moves, I run my numbers really carefully, and also make sure whatever I'm committing to isn't going to overextend me.
And I understand that nothing is guaranteed
Looking at personal loans is just a way to reduce utilization, gradually raise my scores, gradually lower my rates, and then be in a position to be able to move balances, gradually, to lower rates and pay off faster.
If 0% BT offers show up, great. If not, that's OK.
UPDATE: Discover declined 
I'm almost positive the letter will say "high utilization" for CCs and loans (because the Upstart loan was just opened and only has 3 payments down). When I asked, what about a lower loan amount, the CSR told me I could try again in 15 days.
I know with Upstart and Lending Club those were both smaller amounts, $8,000, so maybe it was just too big. But who knows.
I went ahead and submitted with PenFed.
I will keep you posted...