Having tried to lay out the basics in my OP, here are some more subjective thoughts based on my own experiences and observations.

(A word on my own situation, to help readers judge my POV. I've been investing with BTs since the mid-90s, and have done heavily since about 2002. I currently float an average of between $5-600,000 of debt on CCS and LOCs, which is all debt generated by purchasing income-producing real estate. For more insight into my own goals and techniques, see this currently archived thread.)

Be VERY CAREFUL to make sure you make ALL required payments. Using CC promos can be a powerful tool, but the whole enterprise can come crashing down VERY quickly if any mistakes are made. In particular, make sure you have a system for getting ALL your minimum payments to EVERYONE in a TIMELY fashion. The easiest and probably best way to do this is with an automated billpay system, which allows you to "set and forget" monthly payments in advance, and have them made electronically at the appropriate time.

Don't undervalue your credit. The current conventional wisdom at FW seems to be that credit scores aren't any big deal. It is true that IF the above rule is followed, so that no payments are ever late, then much of the damage that can be done to credit profiles by using 0% money is reversible in fairly short order. But after an increase in the influence of credit profiles in recent years, yours is ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL for reasons that go well beyond the traditional ones, like getting a good mortgage rate. A credit profile can determine whether you get a job, what insurance rates you get, what mortgage rates you qualify for, what student loans you can get, generally what hot financial deals you're targeted for, and of course, what other tasty CC offers you receive. So, it is FOOLISH to put it at risk for the sake of a few extra BT $. If in doubt, don't risk messing with your credit profile!

Take the long view. Many make the mistake of thinking only about their credit profile, BT options, etc. over the next 6-18 months. But this discounts the fact that this game can be played for the long haul--and, if one if careful, for progressively greater stakes. For example, I might be able to choose between a $75 signup bonus, and keeping enough inquiries & new lines off of my report to take an existing $20K line and double it to $40K. While that $40K line may not make me any money today, it might very well bring with it a great offer next year (say 0% for 12 months.) By setting myself up now to prepare for these options, I can save FAR more by using this extra line flexibility next year than I might by "selling" my credit for a relative pittance. Note I'm NOT saying don't ever sell your credit. Even though my credit earns me four figures every month, I'll still bite for an exceptional deal (like the Universal laptop deal from a couple years back.) But one should measure twice and cut once on this stuff, IMO.

Consider "rolling" and "partial" strategies. A stock market cliche is, "bulls make money and bears make money, but pigs get slaughtered." In this BT game, pigs are increasingly getting slaughtered too. The two most recent detailed A0R threads at FW--linked above in the OP--show just how much havoc even carefully planned AORs can wreak. My own view--which is grounded in years of observation and millions in BTs--is that by more cautiously and conservatively managing one's BT investments, most of these problems can be avoided. Chief among these is to keep OVERALL AND INDIVIDUAL credit utilization, AS REPORTED TO THE CRAs at reasonable levels--the lower, the better. In particular, I almost never carry >50% on any one line for any length of time, and I roll BT offers over between credit cycles wherever possible. Thus far (knock on wood), I've had no problems with BT investments.

JohnGalt69 said:Couldn't you potentially realize a higher return by using this method and utilizing near 100% of your CL than by carrying the balance at <50%?Yes. Where this kind of "rolling utilization" strategy works, I do get close to 100% utilization, since it never reports as such.

DaveHanson said in the OP:
-Partial utilization/"Rollling maximization" strategies. The standard technique simply maxes out a credit line, and pays off the minimum each month after. This variation uses only a fraction of the line--generally 50% or less--OR pays off the FULL balance before the close of each billing cycle, only to draw it up again immediately after the cycle closes. The main reason for this variation it to keep one's credit score from tanking (it will ALWAYS drop, and often significantly, if one has a line report to the credit bureaus showing more than 50% of their available balance being used), and/or to keep a lender from getting nervous about "high risk activities."


I can see a couple of ways of making rolling maximataion work either with no fee BTers (which are getting rare except for Citi) and/or MBNA's billpay. Don't the issers get suspicious of monthly usage like this?

InterestedOnlooker said:
My understanding from this & similar threads is that maxing out any particular card may raise red flags with that card issuer. Some have reported that their cc company has lowered their cc limits as the balances begin to come down over time due to such activity. Anyone else have extra insight into this?

Thanks for the reply. I just finished reading all the posts. I "improve" the strategy a little bit. I'll rolling 10k between the Citi CC and MBNA CC to make sure each one closes below 50% usage. Then it should not raise flags. Ciit has no BT fee, but I'm not sure if I can use MBNA billpay to move the money. Also, can I use billpay to move money to Citi instead of BT, save me $75 BT fee?

Dave,

Wonderful thread! I am thinking of doing this 'rolling maximization' (paying off the CL every month). My question is how do you keep doing the bt every month? I believe you can 1st do it b/c of the offer using checks or during the time of the application. Do you request 12 checks after you get approved? or can this be done online?

2nd. Would you recommend doing a mini-aor (about 8-10) cards or full-aor (10-20)? The reason being is that if you do the full AOR you may not be able to do it again without closing some accounts.

Thanks

I'm interested in the "rolling" strategy, and noticed this comment from DaveHanson on BTing from one card to another:


SweetCash, there is usually at least a day before a BT gets processed. But the risk of having things happen to fast and having something go wrong far outweighs the benefits of one or two days' more potential interest.

I searched FW and didn't find a clear answer to a related question: what is the longest amount of time anyone has seen a BT take? (And, if you remember, who were the sending and receiving issuers?)

It seems like this would be an easy way to trip up, so I'd like to figure out how to keep this from happening.

Pangloss1980 said:Thank you, btw, CycloneFW for the response, but I'm still a bit confused about the middle ground: I think everyone at this point understands that overall and ind <49% is very safe and overall >89% is quite dangerous, but I haven't seen anyone quite address the very important middle categories, the <49% overall 50-89% individual and the 50-89% overall 50-89% individual.I understand your impulse here, but a major difficulty is that there are simply too many variables at play in specific cases for the aggregation of data on this single variable to be of much value.

It's all about risk/reward tradeoffs. My contention is that generally keeping below 50% on REPORTED lines is the right tradeoff in most situations, especially if one's in this game for the long haul. There are many arguments one could make on this back and forth. I have no doubt that many have gotten along fine with more aggressive targets (though it needs to be stressed that they CANNOT know what other offers they have been missing by doing so, and the evidence confirms the reasonable intuition that those who play more aggressively here won't be receiving as many tasty, targeted offers, or as many automatic CLIs.)

One other point. Many smart people currently worry that we are on a front end of a credit crunch, and lending standards are going to be on a tightening cycle for some time going forward. I agree with this thesis. If it's right, then the risks of adverse action will grow, not shrink with time. All the more reason to not be piggish about utilization.But the returns on the safest (<49% everywhere) strategy obviously differ potentially dramatically for everyone from the returns from the second middle strategy (50-89% overall, <90% individual). That difference is much less than simple math guesstimates might lead one to believe, though, as I explain in the first few posts. Most obviously, remember that 49% "everywhere" excludes both "rolling maximization" and non-reporting lines, for example. 1) What strategy is best for those who don't need their credit rating for 24 months and are really only considering the one AOR within that time frame;For the thousandth time though, one has to keep promo investing and AORs distinct. So even in your proposed category of one AOR in 24 months, why would someone only want to use promo rate money for the intro offers only? If one could be reasonably sure that certain other good offers would only come down the pike in month 7, 13, etc. if their ongoing utilization was reasonable and their credit score high, then shouldn't those variables figure in to the calculus also? I think they should.