transferring balances to 1 card

[Anonymous]

Would it be better to balance transfer all my balances to 1 card so only 1 card reports a balance? basically i have 31k avail beetween all cards, with about 4k total being used, spread across 4, im thinking of a transfer to 1 card so only 1 card reports a balance. Im gonna have it all paid off by end of november anyway, i was just thinking this may be better, and possibly boost me a few points.

[Anonymous]

If the result would be one card that had an individual utilization of > 48.99% it would hurt you, not help.  (Assuming your existing cards are each < 28.99% now.)

Will you be applying for credit before Dec 1?  If not, why would you care about getting a few extra points?

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Would it be better to balance transfer all my balances to 1 card so only 1 card reports a balance? basically i have 31k avail beetween all cards, with about 4k total being used, spread across 4, im thinking of a transfer to 1 card so only 1 card reports a balance. Im gonna have it all paid off by end of november anyway, i was just thinking this may be better, and possibly boost me a few points.

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If the 1 card with the balance is below 9% after the balance transfers, then yes it would probably boost your scores a bit. But unless you have balance transfer offers with no balance transfer fee, it wouldn't be worth it. You don't want to pay a balance transfer fee.

[Anonymous]

I don't think someone should ever have to pay for a few credit score points generally speaking and that's what you'd be doing here with a BT most likely.

Another thing worth asking is how many CCs the OP has.  He mentions balances being spread out across 4, but doesn't specifically say that he only has 4.  If he has 8+ for example, the ding associated with having 4 with reported balances would likely be less than if he only had 4 cards total (all with balances).

[Anonymous]

And most importantly, to my mind, our OP will already be getting any extra points that might be associated with having all cards at zero except one (AZEO).  This will happen naturally when he pays off all his CC debt during the next 7 weeks.

So the decision tree for this really starts with him first asking himself:

Am I planning to make an important credit application in the next 7 weeks?  (For example, is he closing on a home loan in early November?)

If no, then there's no point in thinking about it further.  He's already planning to implement AZEO by Dec 1, so there's no advantage spending a lot of fees to do it by Nov 1.

[NRB525]

OP by the time you figure out the BT options and complete those, it will be end of November and no balances left.

And as noted by others, you will pay 3% to 5% for the privilege.

Pay them in place.