Goes with debt postings,have 0% transfer question...

[ilovediznee]

Hey! Wanted to list this separately as someone else might be in the same boat. I rec'd an offer for 0% until November 1, 2006 on balance transfers from Chase. I read and re-read the stuff and I think it's a good deal, but does anyone know how much you have to pay per month of your balance?

I want to move a balance of $7000 over. Right now I pay about $149.00 a month and $75 is finance charges. My thought is that if they said I had to pay 2% of the balance, that would be about the same amount I am paying now, but no finance charges.

If you have done this, please let me know how much these cards require you to pay each month. What I don't want is my payment to double because I can't afford that right now.

Thanks - Dianedisney

 

[welovedis]

Why not call them and ask the bank/card issuer directly?

 

[got2lovedisney]

I just got a similar deal on a Discover card...on a $13400 balance, the min was about $250 but I agree with welovedis...call the card issuer directly because different companies may have different methods of calculation.

 

[funcinderella]

Also, USUALLY, there is a maximum transfer fee, i.e. 2% or $50, whichever is greater. Sometimes the max fee is $75; look at the fine print.

To recover the transfer fee, I wrote the check for 14,000, put half in my ing account for 2-3 months (earning 3% interest) and then paid it off again. I guess not a good idea if you don't want all of that debt showing on your credit report, but worked for me!! And the fee did not increase whether I wrote the check for $7000 or $14000, the max was still $50. *Note: This cc company let me write the check to myself, but still considered it as a balance transfer, not a cash advance.

Hope that's not too confusing...

 

[cruisnfamily]

Also, USUALLY, there is a maximum transfer fee, i.e. 2% or $50, whichever is greater. Sometimes the max fee is $75; look at the fine print.

I have gotten similar offers from AT&T Universal card before and if you ever get one from them, take it! There's NO TRANSFER FEE....or at least there wasn't on the offer I received....I couldn't believe it.

 

[funcinderella]

I used to always get those offers with 0% and no transfer fee; now I rarely get them, and if I do, they're usually with like 2.9% and no transfer fee. Guess the cc companies are catching on; bummer!!

 

[pediatric-rnp]

A few months ago we rec'd an offer from Chase -0% interest until June 2006, and no transfer fee. We jumped on that one - 0% int for 14 months and no transfer fee can't be beat!

 

[Nik's Mom]

I transferred our credit cards onto one card with a 0% until June 06 with no fee from chase. For $4000, it was only $10. I couldn't believe how low that was. My #1 goal will be to pay that off!

 

[Cheshire Figment]

There is one very important additional thing to consider. When you make any payment it is applied against the lowest interest rate first. If you have purchases on the same card, as long as their rate is higher than the transfer rate they will continue to accrue interest.

The best thing to do is use the new card (Chase) only for the Balance Trasnsfer until the BT is paid off. Do not cancel the old card but use that one for new purchases (and if possible pay them off each month.

 

[Bbbethei]

Definitely call Chase to learn the minimum payment. Most of the major credit cards are doubling their minimum payment so it will be close to 4% of the balance.

Also, be careful with balance transfer game if you care about your credit score. A good portion of your credit score is based on the length of your credit history. By closing an older account and opening a new one, you are shortening your length of credit history and can significantly lower your credit score.

HTH!

 

[pediatric-rnp]

There is one very important additional thing to consider. When you make any payment it is applied against the lowest interest rate first. If you have purchases on the same card, as long as their rate is higher than the transfer rate they will continue to accrue interest.

The best thing to do is use the new card (Chase) only for the Balance Trasnsfer until the BT is paid off. Do not cancel the old card but use that one for new purchases (and if possible pay them off each month.

Very true -I neglected to mention this. We are not using the new chase card - we cut it up. This was opened just to be able to pay off the debt accumulated on the other card, without the penalty of interest. And we are now paying off the old one each month as the bill comes in. We will not be closing out the old card, either, due to the length of time we've had it, for credit score ratings purposes.

 

[polkadotladybug]

I have been wanting to find a 0% credit card to transfer our credit card debt over to - seems like all we do is pay finance charges. We are not charging anymore, but it seems like we still can't get ahead. Ideally we could find a no interest cc to roll it to, so we can start attacking the actual debt.

Does anyone know of a credit card that you can call and get that has a 0% finance charge for balance transfers and no (or minimal) transfer fee? Do I just have to wait till one arrives in my mailbox?

Thanks so much!

Carol

 

[tikilyn]

This is what my dh does. We got a 0% offer for balance transfer and it had a fee of 75.00 to transfer. So dh waits until he gets the bill and then calls customer services and ask that they removed the fee "because he was sure that the offer said no fee"!! It works everytime.