Good job laying out your situation OP. However, it isn't entirely clear what your goals are...is it just getting as much 0% money for as long as possible?

A few quick thoughts:

-Most important: you should apply for credit line increases during the same AOR in which you apply for new cards. Given your good credit and low line sizes, you'll likely get a few sizable line increases, with very little additional cost to your credit score. Those can then be reallocated to cards with great offers.

-You definitely want Penfed. With your score, and if you can report decent income (they won't generally hassle you with verification if your score is good), you'll get as high as $30K from them alone. And you can get 1.25% flat Cash Back, and do a 4.99% for life BT with no fees should you chose to. Even if you don't qualify for free membership, it's $20, one time. Many other benefits too. Anyone serious about playing CC games should get this card.

-Don't worry about requesting more than $10K balance transfers. Banks generally won't worry if they're coming in to you, from cards in your name. $25k is a good bet.

Good luck, and keep us posted.

Wait until after you get the limit to request the bt.

Thank you for all the great comments so far. Hopefully, I can address them in one post.

hair said:Why do you want a Capital One card? They seem to like hitting all 3 CRA's with inquiries, and then once you get the card they don't report your credit limit, only high balance. In general, low CL, and not much CLI. Only way to go for it is if you put a sizable BT on the application, and maybe go for a business card variety since the CL won't appear on your personal report.
This is an interesting point. I have also read somewhere else, that CapOne doesn't report the CL and thus would show 100% utilization. My reasoning was to get a foot in with as many new credit lenders as I can (since right now I am only with citi, chase, AMEX and discover). However, as there were no good offers from CapOne - I haven't picked any card from them yet. I will think about the business card.

hair said:Use your current & any new Citi cards to your advantage with the BT check to self requests (even if it's no-fee, since you'll be paying it off within a matter of days with other BT).
This is definitely what I think of doing. I actually have no fee offers in both my citi and universal cards, and so for the AOR BT offers I will definitely send them to citi to first get credit balance checks and later take also a BT check from citi to create negative balance and do another BT into these accounts to cover it.

hair said:Maybe consider moving some of your AMEX business CL to your personal before the statement closes so other issuers will see a higher line there.
This, I was not so sure about doing. Is it better for new credit inquiries to show overall lower amount of credit that is currently extended to me, or is it better for new inquirers to see that I have a number of cards with higher credit limits? If, I am to do the AOR on Monday, then it's too late for this right now. Unless there is enough benefit in doing this, in which case I would postpone the AOR. (Right now 5/15 is my deadline because the chase offer expires 5/15)

inda said:Why some many bank accounts?
I am opening those bank accounts, because they require hard pulls. I have been holding off on opening these precisely because of the hard pulls and I figured I might as well do it while doing AOR. (I know USAA doesn't do hard pull - that one I want to have as my life-long bank and haven't opened it just yet).

bfit01 said:I would definately try to consolidate lines BEFORE your AOR. IME, many limits are based on the highest limit already showing.
I am really undecided about this one. I definitely agree on the principal of this, yet I don't know if it makes sense just a few days before AOR (it makes sense weeks/months before AOR). Mainly, because as soon as I get the new Chase card, I will move lines from the other chase cards to the new one to get as high a BT as I can. I'm not sure the CSRs will be so willing to move my lines twice (consolidation first, reallocation second) in a span of a few days.

mbaker4096 said:Might as well apply for it after applying for the MBNA card you really want. I have no trouble believing they'd give you both cards without too much effort and you don't have to do a BT on the Jets card...just reallocate any credit they grant you there back to the card with the capped limit and do a BT request for the full amount.
I would, but I don't see any MBNA cards right now, that offer a max cap on BTs. I know it's been mentioned that MotleyFool MBNA card has a cap - but when I click on the application, it only shows a minimum of $10 and 3% fee for me. It never shows any max fee. If I can't find an MBNA card with a max cap, then I guess I won't apply for it.

DaveHanson said:it isn't entirely clear what your goals are...is it just getting as much 0% money for as long as possible?
Hi Dave, thanks for your input (I was hoping you'd find this thread!). Yes, my goal is as much 0% BT as possible for as long as possible. At the same time, I want to start building up my credit cards for a long-term. Meaning, I want to attain high CL cards with high amount of total credit available to me. I have read your threads very carefully and noticed how you advise on keeping creditors at ease by not going into full utilization mode, perhaps taking a full amount BT but paying it down to 50% before the first statement and so on. I do want to "get" into this "game" of low APR BT money (not necessarily only 0%), but I also want to "stay" in it for as long as possible, with bigger and bigger benefits in the future.

DaveHanson said:-Most important: you should apply for credit line increases during the same AOR in which you apply for new cards. Given your good credit and low line sizes, you'll likely get a few sizable line increases, with very little additional cost to your credit score. Those can then be reallocated to cards with great offers.
I thought about it as well. However, should I do this right before the AOR round or right after? I think right after would be safer as the AOR wouldn't see the CLI pulls, then again CLI decisions if using pulls might get spooked by the AOR aftermath on the CRA reports. Not sure what to do yet.

DaveHanson said:-You definitely want Penfed. With your score, and if you can report decent income (they won't generally hassle you with verification if your score is good), you'll get as high as $30K from them alone. And you can get 1.25% flat Cash Back, and do a 4.99% for life BT with no fees should you chose to. Even if you don't qualify for free membership, it's $20, one time. Many other benefits too. Anyone serious about playing CC games should get this card.
Thank you for this re-assurance. I was debating penfed, but wasn't 100% sure. I will make it my #1 application for the AOR, and pay the $20 to get in (I don't qualify otherwise). It is a great card to have and the 4.99 for life no fee BT is a super-bonus if ever needed.

DaveHanson said:-Don't worry about requesting more than $10K balance transfers. Banks generally won't worry if they're coming in to you, from cards in your name. $25k is a good bet.
Great! I doubt, I'll be lucky enough to pull any $25k checks in this round, but I won't be worrying about the $10k limit anymore.

tuphat said:If one's objective in the 0% BT game is to invest the free money provided, I think it is currently hard to find a risk-free investment that will yield significantly more than 4.99%, at least if you limit yourself to durations of 12 mo or less. I could be missing something. Your friend, tuphat.
I think that if you're doing a huge AOR, you might at some point face the problem that you do not have a "destination" for the BT. Many lenders require that you BT into a cc account, but besides citi, I don't think you are "safe" BT-ing anywhere else if there is no need. I read that MBNA, AMEX and Chase as well do not handle well if you overpay and you might risk your accounts there. Thus, I believe the safest bet is to actually create a negative balance for a few days, pay interest and BT into that account. More on these strategies check here.

Thank you everyone for your comments. This is a big decision for me overall, so I am trying to be as careful as possible and I'm hoping to have all the bases covered.

The problem with the bank accounts resides not in the credit report, but in the ChexSystems, who won't let you open more than, say, 4 checking/savings accounts in any period of 4 months.

Penfed is a must have, better than the HSBC.

I won't bother with that BofA.

Dump the Capital One.

and... Good luck on this one!

mbaker4096 said:g10ny said:The problem with the bank accounts resides not in the credit report, but in the ChexSystems, who won't let you open more than, say, 4 checking/savings accounts in any period of 4 months.I've done considerably more than that in the space of 1-2 weeks. Believe 8 in one week is my personal best.

Yes, indeed - I'm aware about the chexsystem limits. Then again, some banks perform a cra pull as a part of their verification process, thus I thought I might as well do all the damage in one day.

As Dave said, make sure you also ask for CL increases on all your existing cards. I noticed a lot of your 0% card offers involved capped fees, like 3% max $50. Although I think that requesting a big BT with your application helps you get a big CL and helps your acceptance odds, I would be reluctant to request BTs on cards with these BT fees. I knew a friend with good credit and similar existing CLs who asked for a ~$10K BT with one application, got approved for a useless $500 BT and CL, and got charged $15 (3%) for the privilege. Something to be careful of. At least with no fee offers like Citi, you can ask for big BT's without this risk.

jairocon said:
Banks to open:
--------------
1. GMAC MMS
2. Amboy Direct
3. Citibank Checking
4. Citibank e-saving
4. USAA checking
5. BofA Checking
6. HSBC Online Savings


Actually there are no hard pulls for HSBC, USAA, and Amboy bank accounts. So you are only looking at hard pulls on Citibank, GMAC, and BofA. I'd definitely put those off till last after you apply for all the credit cards so those inquiries don't show up when applying for the cards which will be much more important. But definitely do same day as your credit cards. And on the Citibank bank accounts I was able to apply on the phone for checking(w/ code for $200 in bonuses) and e-savings at the same time, they had to do 2 seperate applications but at least only 1 hard inquiry was done.

Yeah, ChexSystems probably won't be a problem with too many new accounts because I've basically signed up for that same amount of bank accounts in a very short time period too with no issues(also ING and Wamu but not BofA...all the rest the same as yours).

agent099 said:Ok maybe I am missing something but your total debt is only $219 yet you are applying for 8+ cards with BT limits of $1000 each.


Wouldn't only 1 BT card be requried for a debt amount so small?

I'm applying for BT money not to cover my current "debt" (I have enough of my own money, and I'm not in debt). I'm getting the BT money for the purpose of stashing them in a safe banking vehicle (high yield savings, mma or cd) to essentially make some extra.

Thanks all for your responses, I will be going at it in a few hours. I will definitely keep updating this thread as I'll start getting some results.

DaveHanson said:...The reason is that if you do it late on a busy day like Monday, you'll likely have several inquries delayed for a couple of days.

So starting right now would be bad? Are apps all reviewed by humans? I thought most were "instant answer" types of automated application and acceptance?

MeBeDealing said:DaveHanson said:...The reason is that if you do it late on a busy day like Monday, you'll likely have several inquiries delayed for a couple of days.

So starting right now would be bad? Are apps all reviewed by humans? I thought most were "instant answer" types of automated application and acceptance?Many, even most apps IME are reviewed by humans. And an app submitted first thing in the morning has a better chance of being pulled and processed that day, especially mid-week.

I think the best bet for a major credit quest like OPs is to set aside a weekday morning and start by 8-11 EST, and run straight through for a couple of hours, as quickly as possible.

Congrats OP on your successes! Several more to come, I'm sure...thanks for keeping us updated.