Which credit cards issue checks for large overpayments (BT) without hassle?

Timing is everything when it comes to getting free 0% APR balance transfers and such. If you decide to take the free money, you better take it all at once (or keep usage below 50%). As your score drops and utilization ratio increases, you are less and less likely to receive similar offers from other banks.

You'll need some way of getting the money out. Occasionally the bank will mail you convenience checks (read the fine print then - e.g. AMÅX will treat it as cash advance if you write it in your own name) or will offer to deposit into checking (Citi, Chase, who else). Usually, however, your only option is to transfer balance from another account (with a different issuer).

You can then "transfer balance" from an account, where there is no balance, and then request a check. It has been discussed on FatWallet many times. However, some issuers will send you a check promptly and without asking any questions while others may take a few months or offer to send the money back to the card you used for payment only or close your account, especially if you have a history of requesting checks for overpayment.

Please share your experience: what was the maximum amount you were able to request this way, how high is your credit limit, how long did it take? Please share negative experience as well.

The last time I did this with Discover, they held the overpayment for 10 business days before sending a check.

Citi is pretty convenient. You can request the refund check online so they won’t be asking any questions.

A few years ago, I overpaid a Fleet card by $15K or so, for similar reasons to OP. They were fairly suspicious, but eventually cut me a check after 3 weeks. I second what has been said above about MBNA conveniently doing transfers to checking.

I ask this question, long time ago, but no definite answer,

Can you BT to your Debit Card?

For experience, I did it with AMEX, they are slow, more than 10 days. And they are very careful, they will send a letter tell you you are requesting a check now. The second letter will be the check.

CornHusker said: I ask this question, long time ago, but no definite answer,

Can you BT to your Debit Card?

I remember asking the same question. Yes, this would be the easiest way. Some banks, e.g. Juniper, recognizes the issuer by credit card number and sends payment there, but they could easily determine that it is a debit card with a Visa or MasterCard logo. I haven't tried this.

EugeneV said: HJM said: With MBNA's BillPay, monthly bills should take care most of the balance transfer. If that is not enough, offer to pay your brother's and sister's bills. No red flag, no waiting, the money is already in your bank account.

HJM.

Care to explain?

I can pay other credit cards and creare a positive balance there and negative on MBNA. I then have to pay back MBNA and still have to get my money from other cards somehow. How does BillPay help?

If your family members have the money, they wouldn't have large bills to have to begin with.
MBNA Bill Pay allow you to pay mortgage, insurance, utilities, etc. not just credit card. I pay 3 mortgages each month totaled around $6000.00. Combining all the bills for the whole family can easily reach $10,000 each month. Since your family have to pay those bills each month anyway, you pay for them and they sign you a check. You save them a lot of stamps and no worry of lost check or late fee.

HJM.

EugeneV said: That would work for you then.

I had in mind getting 100K during one month. Sure, my scores would plummet with four 25K cards maxed out, but I can just pay them back when I need my scores to go back up.

Just curious, you were able to request a 25K overpaid check in the past?

HJM.

I once did a $10k transfer to Discover and they promptly mailed me an $8k check for the overpayment (had an approx $2k monthly balance). I then sent another $10k payment to Discover the next month when balance was only $21. Discover took almost a month to send me the $10k check then -- set some falgs off!

I've used Citi for overpayments of $18K and $19K when my credit limit was $10-12K. No problems there.
I've used BofA for overpayments of $10-15K when my credit limit was only $1500. No problems there, either.
I've used Discover for overpayments of $5-10K when my credit limit was $9500. No worries, no hassle.

I'll usually have one card which is capable of generating no-fee BT check-based withdrawals -- typically Citi or Chase. I'll typically transfer money around until I can get it to that card and then write checks for easy deposit in my bank account.

Often card issuers are able to BT directly to HELOCs. As mentioned by others, many banks are happy to put the check directly in your checking account (Chase, Citi, MBNA).

I've never done BTs to debit cards, but will likely try it next time around.

Good luck!

I have had Citi BT to my DCU credit card. I could just transfer the money from my credit card to checking account. No hassle. But it was nowhere near 100k

pras

mbaker4096 said:
I've never done BTs to debit cards, but will likely try it next time around.


Did a BT for 5K with Discover to BofA check card, worked but took almost a month!!

pavcherny said: So whatever you do, don't overpay to MBNA. They call it "inflating your credit line". Then, they'll close your account without explanation and say they don't like you. Nothing you can do, either. I lost about $700 in rewards/points because of it. Don't overpay with MBNA.
Thanks for sharing. Sorry about your loss .

Via Discover, I tried a BT to my debit card through online system. It asked for my address and ended up mailing a check to me instead.

bk330ci said: Via Discover, I tried a BT to my debit card through online system. It asked for my address and ended up mailing a check to me instead.

thats good to know, should try this. Discover's CSRs swear they dont allow this. But I know its not the case because they just sent me some BT checks that I can deposit directly to my account, probably something to do with commision. Bad thing is the card has good CashBack programs (5% gas, the recent 10% restaurant deal), so I am averse to using it for BTs now.

EugeneV,

Seems like your story should be you *sell* paintings from time to time, to patrons such as Chase, Discover, and Citibank.

snoopy123 said: pavcherny said: So whatever you do, don't overpay to MBNA. They call it "inflating your credit line". Then, they'll close your account without explanation and say they don't like you. Nothing you can do, either. I lost about $700 in rewards/points because of it. Don't overpay with MBNA.

My MBNA accounts were just closed due to overpay $4000 on one account. I hope I have read this before.....What is the probability % to reopen and keep the same credit line? How to reopen them? I have been with MBNA since 1999.

You, too, eh? Funny thing is, I have overpaid many times before, for years. Not every month or anything, but I'd do 10-20K in balance transfers, or overpay when I needed to make a large purchase. They reviewed my accounts before and never said it was a problem.

My current strategy to get the cards reinstated is the following:

1) Pull privacyguard to get rid of the inquiries
2) Open up no new accounts
3) Transfer no more balances and pay off all balances in 4 months.
4) Use my credit cards normally for everyday purchases.
5) 5 months from now, plan to pay off most of my monthly revolving balances so my usage is below 10% on all cards.
5) After 6 months, call MBNA and ask to have all of my cards reinstated. Because they also made me fax in financial documents, I will ask for an overall credit line increase beyond their 25 K limit. (They usually do up to 25 K without financial statements)


What I think happens is that MBNA will look at your credit history and payments to make sure that you're not a default risk and if you have a decent score/rating according to their criteria, they'll reopen the cards. But you need to call. I don't think they will reopen automatically.

If you let your credit history heal, I think there's a very good chance they will reopen the accounts.

Oh one more thing. On Experian, the accounts how as closed by grantor and are closed. On transunion, it shows as closed by grantor, but the status is open.

hope that helps. Everyone, especially if you have large credit lines, be careful about overpaying with MBNA.

I agree with what everyone else said about Discover. They hold it for 10 days after the last BT payment. Can't get my refund check since I still have another BT check being processed by them. The CSR even asked me why I'm sending them all these payments. Why would they care?

So far, no hassle with Chase, AAA card, Amazon card, or American Express.

AMEX is pretty nervous on anything slightly abnormal nowadays.

mbaker4096 said: The largest that check can be written for is your credit limit, even if you have a negative balance.
This is certainly good advice. I did notice one time I overpaid my Åmex card that the credit available online showed up as higher than my normal credit limit by the amount of the overpayment. I didn't try anything to make use of this, and neither should you . I expect this is fairly atypical behavior.