SIS comes back with the App-O-Rama FAQ - AKA MAKING THOUSANDS OF $$ FROM CREDIT Link AOR stories and post your successes

Just got an offer for BoA business card in my email. Terms are 0% on BT for 9 months, no fee. Sorry, there's no offer code. This is as opposed to the normal terms of 0% for 6 months and 3% uncapped fee. I just completed my AOR but might apply for this card still. Does anyone know if BoA has strict requirements regarding business cards or are they pretty relaxed (I do not own a business but was able to get 2 business cards from Citi).

Regarding PNC -- It's true that they have 0% BT, no fee and $50 bonus, but they gave me a very small credit line. I applied for Chase on the same date, and PNC's CL is just 1/3 of Chase.

I'm collecting various bits of knowledge in preparation for my AOR ... One thing that I was not able to find much on (despite having read almost every thread that has "AOR" in the title) is the following:

1) how successful are people in giving their check-/debit-/bank-card number instead of credit card number as BT destination?
2) did anyone get caught red-handed doing this? what were the consequences?
3) how does this transaction look on the receving end? ACH? or smth. else? Are there any problems (except for a much anticipated several-day hold)?

I just don't want to go through PenFed (btw, they just bumped their BT rate to 5.99%) -- too much time to be invested (+ some money upfront, which is smth. I'm not a big fan of).

Freddingo said: I believe there is a thread dedicated to this question, search a bit...
Actually - look at page 1 of this thread under OP (sis')
Quantification of #7, Money to be Made
Maximum annual income I ever earned from CC BT interest rate arbitrage and CC/bank rewards
How to make money with Balance Transfers
How to get the Balance Transfer money from CC companys that don't transfer to checking accounts

cyberkost said: I'm collecting various bits of knowledge in preparation for my AOR ... One thing that I was not able to find much on (despite having read almost every thread that has "AOR" in the title) is the following:

1) how successful are people in giving their check-/debit-/bank-card number instead of credit card number as BT destination?
2) did anyone get caught red-handed doing this? what were the consequences?
3) how does this transaction look on the receving end? ACH? or smth. else? Are there any problems (except for a much anticipated several-day hold)?

I just don't want to go through PenFed (btw, they just bumped their BT rate to 5.99%) -- too much time and money to be invested.

Well, I read this entire thread before posting here ... but that was not enough to answer my questions (let alone answer them conclusively). You're right though -- I should probably take this question of mine there. I put it in this thread first b/c it seems that this is the one most frequented by seasoned AORammers (and it is their word I trust the most).

For those of you who have participated in the app-o-rama, perhaps you have an excel sheet that you used as a template to hold all of the credit card info / call numbers, etc. I'm curious as to how you organized yourselves. Please post an excel template if you have one, or point to a better tool. Thanks.

Yup, BT counted as a purchase.

If you're not going to take advantage of the BT offers, your score should recover almost completely within 6 months. The inquires will stay on your report for 2 years though.

Just did my AOR tonight. Immediate results are as follows:

Personal
Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards MC Deferred
Citi Professional Card Deferred
Chase SonyStyle Card Approved $5000 (temporary)
Morgan Stanley Discover Gas Declined (letter 3-5 days)
Morgan Stanley Discover Platinum Declined duplicate app
Citi AT&T Universal Rewards Approved $3,600
Citi Platinum Select Card Deferred
AMEX Platinum Business Premium Cash Rebate Didn't apply
FNB of Omaha Platinum Edition Visa Deferred
Chase Disney Rewards Visa Deferred
HSBC GM Flexible Earnings Card Approved Unknown
Bank of Omaha Platinum Visa Declined duplicate app
Bank of Albuquerque Platinum Visa Deferred
FNB Bucks Back Platinum Visa Declined duplicate app
Chase Freedom Visa Approved
Chase Free Cash Rewards Visa Deferred
Bank of Texas Platinum Visa Deferred
Penfed Visa Platinum Cash Rewards Deferred

Business
Citi Business Card with Thank You network Error
Citi Business Card with Thank You network Error
Advanta Platinum Rewards BusinessCard MC Deferred
Advanta Platinum BusinessCard MC Deferred
Advanta BusinessCard Error
Chase Business Cash Rewards Deferred
Chase GM Business Deferred
AMEX Simply Cash Business Card Approved
AMEX Platinum Business FreedomPass Card Approved
AMEX Platinum Business Card Deferred

The "Error" listed for three cards was some sort of browser error. I tried redoing the application and got the same thing, so I'll just wait and see what comes of it.

If anyone has questions, let me know. I'm probably not going to post a separate AOR thread, since I know that makes the old timers grumpy.

2Cor521

OK guys, need some help. Did a search, and found that some credit cards require that you make x number of purchases every x number of months in order to maintain the intro rates on BT's.

I'm doing a mini AOR, and have read the terms and conditions until my eyes were buggy for each one of my new cards, and DID NOT see such requirements. Can anyone, from personal experience, confirm or contradict this or point out any other gotchas for the following cards:

BofA Platinum Plus
Citi Professional
Citi Upromise Platinum Select
Citi Platinum Select
Discover Platinum

Thanks!

Pugranch -- I never got an approval the second time but I had read about similar problems before here on FW so I would not be surprised at duplicate apps. I did apply for lots of Citi cards though and already have three existing Citi cards, so I don't really expect approvals on all of them.

PolarDude said: SecondCor521 said:

...



Useful info that FNB of Omaha only allows 1 app. I wonder if you would have tried one of their cobranded banks, there would have been an approval? I think they are slow in processing the apps. I am also curious if you get more than 1 Advanta card. I think you had some Elan cards in there, and they have a ton of cobranded banks.
What were your scores/age/utilization/High credit/reported income?
What kind of biz structure was it? (Ein supplied? Corp, sole proprietor?)

Congrats on any approvals you get!

This is my first AOR, so I am still not exactly clear on the relationship between the brand names and the issuers and the card types and all that. I was trying for a variety of issuers but I did notice a going through the apps that even when it would say "bank X" it would end up REALLY being First USA, or Chase, or something. I don't know what effect that might have on my approvals.

Scores: If I had done my own thread, I would have called it a Lazy-O-Rama as I didn't check my credit scores before and have no intentions of checking them after. I do know when I applied for my mortgage in late November, my mortgage company informed me my score was 761, and that was before my only outstanding balance dropped under 50% utilization on that card. I can check my Equifax report for free and I know I have lots of credit cards from the big issuers with high limits, no lates ever.

Age: I have one card that reports on my Equifax report that was opened in 1978. It's actually my Dad's card but it ended up on my report because we have similar names and at the time I was living at his address. I have never fixed the error because I know it helps my credit score. (I've told him about it and he's fine with it.)

Utilization: Just under 49% on one card, all the rest at zero balances. Overall utilization is about 6% depending on how they want to count my HELOC which reports on Equifax as a mortgage account.

High credit: I have a $35,900 line with Citi.

Reported income: Prefer not to say specifically. Probably about average for a FWer.

Biz: "2Cor521 Enterprises", no EIN provided, sole proprietor, 1 employee, financial services consulting.

2Cor521

how much luck has everyone had getting No fee BTs after the application date? I didn't ask for BT's because

1) From reading, it didn't look like I would be able to BT into a checking account from most cards
2) I had no idea how much credit I would be approved for since I haven't applied for a new card in years and dont have a ton of existing credit

I'd like to use some offers to BT into one of my ne Citi cards (when they get approved) and then get myself some checks to deposit but this will be done after the app stage. Any tips to get CC Co's to waive the BT fee or do most of you guys just eat the $75?

I've been trying to look through the AOR threads but there are just tons and tons of them and I can't seem to find the right one for the info I'm looking for. I'm trying to understand exactly what the steps are after being approved for all the new lines of credit. I am seeing the 0% BTs into checking, check writing, investing, etc. but it's not clicking in my head how you actually get that money in your hands and invest it elsewhere. Is there a particular thread that explains the AOR process? Maybe also the right age/amount of credit history one should have before attempting? I looked through this one since it was titled "FAQ" but still don't see how it exactly works in detail. Anyone can hopefully direct me to an applicable thread or source of information so I can research more rather than asking questions that I know must be answered in other places? Thanks.

lappyhappy said: Just got finished reading every single post in this thread as well as many other aor and bt threads but a question still remains for this newbie... Is the BT money a card gives you based on your current CL's, or is it based on how much you currently owe?

It would seem that if a CC company is doing a hard pull they will see your total CL's and utilization, which means they know how much you owe on other cards. Why would they give you BT $'s in the amount of your total CL instead of only giving you the amount which is currently owed on these other cards?

Some CC companies will allow you to "BT" money to yourself so you can go on vacation, pay your tax bill, make home improvements, or whatever they think you think you need or want additional money for. In other words, they want you to go into more hock so you'll end up paying them more interest in the long run when (they hope) you fail to pay off the balance within the introductory offer period.

They will give you a CL that they're willing to risk on you based on their evaluation of your creditworthiness as defined by your credit score. The amount that you can then BT will be any amount up to your CL. Note that if you borrow 100% of your CL and there is a BT fee on top of that, then you may get charged an over limit fee. For example, if you have a $10,000 CL and there is a BT fee of $75, then you should never BT more than $9,925. Even then, there are many here that advocate only using a percentage of your CL, such as 90%, 70%, or 50%. If you have a high utilization on any card it makes you look bad to the CC companies and you will not be as successful in your AORs as you otherwise might be.

2Cor521

lappyhappy said: SecondCor521 said: Some CC companies will allow you to "BT" money to yourself so you can go on vacation, pay your tax bill, make home improvements, or whatever they think you think you need or want additional money for. In other words, they want you to go into more hock so you'll end up paying them more interest in the long run when (they hope) you fail to pay off the balance within the introductory offer period.2Cor521

AH ok... so as I understand it there are basically two types of cc companies you'll deal with on an aor/bt:

Type A: Doesn't care what you do with the money, they just want to have you be in debt to them (these types will have no problem making the BT check out to you)

Type B: Only want the funds to go toward paying off other cards (in these cases you must have a "believable" account to which they can send the funds.) But this leads back to my original question... in the case of this type of company, would they still be making the BT in the amount of the total CL or just in the amount that you owed on the cards whose balances you want to transfer? (I'm assuming by your previous post that it would be in the amount of the CL but I still can't understand from the side of the CC company why this would be.)


My understanding is that all CC companies are really "Type A". In theory, they could cross-check your BT request against the balance reported on the your credit report. In practice, they don't do this. I can think of a few reasons:

1. Your balance might have changed between the time they pulled your credit report and the time you request the BT.
2. The people at the CC company who do the BT requests are in a whole different area of the company from the people who pull your credit report.
3. They really don't care what you do with the money; what matters is that you owe them and they hope to get interest from you.

Practices by CC company do differ as to whether they will give you the money by letting you do a real BT to a credit card, deposit it directly into your checking account, or send you physical checks which you can write out to whomever you wish. I don't have a ready explanation as to these differences. They may vary by customer and by CC company and possibly by credit card.

The easy ways I know of to get money from a BT are:

1. BT to a Visa debit card attached to my checking account. This apparently works because to the company giving you the BT money it looks exactly like a traditional BT. They can't tell from the Visa number that it's going to a checking account instead of a credit card account.
2. BT to a Citi card that has a zero balance, then requesting Citi send you a refund check for your "overpayment".
3. Direct deposit to checking account, if available from the CC company.

HTH,

2Cor521

I have a noob question. I am thinking about APP-O-RAMA.

I heard somewhere that when doing app-o-rama, it helps to do soft inquiries through a credit monitoring service.

How does that help? Can somebody point me to right direction or link? Thanks in advance.

The reason I am interested in smoothing the impact on my score is I want to do App-O-rama for gathering some quick cash for immediate need and then apply for a joint loan within a month for business purpose (3 partners with great credit)

Any helpful comment is highly appreciated.

What should I do with my given situation? Once I pay off my current 0% BT debt, my goal is to get more 0% BT money (aiming for between $10K and $20K).

Many of my credit limits are low..
My 14 revolving account limits are as follows:

AMEX1 - 17K (owe $0)
AMEX2 - 17K (owe $0)
Discover - 4K (owe $1800 on a 0% BT)
MBNA1 - 2.5K (owe $0)
MBNA2 - 2.5K (owe $0)
Charles Schwab (MBNA3) - 3K (owe $0)
Chase1 - 1.5K (owe $0)
Chase2 - $800 (owe $0)
Chase3 - 3.5K (owe $0)
PIGGYBACK Chase - $35000 (mom owes roughly $6K)
Citi1 - 3.2K (owe $1000 on a 0% BT)
Citi2 - 3.5K (owe $1600 on a 0% BT)
Citi3 - 2.3K (owe $1000 on a 0% BT)
CrapOne - 2K (owe $0)

Totals - 97.8K Credit limit, 11.4K debt

Would a better option then an AOR be to do a "Hard CLI O' Rama" for Chase/Citi/MBNA? Will all of the hard inquiries from CLI hit on the same day, if so? If an AOR would be more beneficial, should I consolidate cards and have fewer revolving accounts and then engage AOR?

Misc info from my credit report: paid off one Stafford Loan approx $3K and paid off one car loan approx $6K. My Piggyback Chase is my oldest revolving account (almost 20 years) followed by CrapOne (5 years). No mortgage, and my credit score is between 700 and 750 depending on which CB.


TIA

danboris said: Just to make sure I'm understanding correctly...does it work like this? Arbitrary numbers, estimates, just the main idea please.

For example, you apply for 10 credit cards, lets say each has a 5k credit limit. Now to be safe and not make your credit utilization too high, let's say you allocate 90% of each limit as a balance transfer to your Check/Debit Card account, which is your checking account. There's $45,000 you just put into your checking account, minus let's say...$100 per balance transfer, so that's $44,000 to your checking. Let's say you deposit all this into a money market account with an average 5% annual yield. Not counting it being calculated monthly, but just 5% yearly, that's $2200 made for free per year on interest from that money. All the while we'll be making an average, I dunno, 3% minimum payment on each balance for each card per month, so subtract (an overestimated) $100/month (continually decreasing) per card. So over the course of the year, you pay back $12,000 in minimum payments, you pay back the remaining $32,000, and you have your $2200 for free. This is all of course overestimating monthly payments, rather low credit limits, and a very conservative rate of return. The money made should be much higher than this. It all works as long as you can pay the minimum payments for each card.

Basically this how it goes?

Yup, more or less. Note that the amount of effort required is essentially the same independent of credit limit -- you can make $4400 in your example if you assume a $10k credit limit -- which is partly why there is so much effort devoted here to getting high limits. Also note that the minimum payments can be paid from the money in the money market account, so you don't even have to pay those out of current cash flow if you don't want to.

2Cor521

Edited 20070125 for word choice.

SuperMxyz said: SuperMxyz said: What's to stop a person from just keeping their 0% money and letting their credit slip or possibly negotiating a smaller cash payoff? Sorry if this has been covered, if it has please point me in the right direction.

What if you're approaching retirement age and haven't saved any money besides home equity. Say at this point you have $500k on credit cards and sell your house to liquidate 200k equity. Couldn't you live in a retirement home or rent with your 700k (in CDs or a shoebox) and be able to live much more comfortably than if you only had 200k equity and no cash? What are the credit companies going to do, take your social security money?

Will this be the retirement plan of the future?

Can anyone answer this? It got buried in the last few pages with no responses. Children aren't liable for the money. If you die with credit card debt, it may be taken out of your estate but why would you care if you have no estate?The retirement plan of the future??? You mean for weasles???

So let's see... You fail to plan for your retirement so you hatch a plan to steal as much money as possible from financial institutions instead???

Just think of the possibilites if you were to open that up to stealing from your neighbors, actually robbing banks, slip and fall "accidents", writing bad checks.

Would you print your own money, too?

SuperMxyz said: SuperMxyz said: What's to stop a person from just keeping their 0% money and letting their credit slip or possibly negotiating a smaller cash payoff? Sorry if this has been covered, if it has please point me in the right direction.

What if you're approaching retirement age and haven't saved any money besides home equity. Say at this point you have $500k on credit cards and sell your house to liquidate 200k equity. Couldn't you live in a retirement home or rent with your 700k (in CDs or a shoebox) and be able to live much more comfortably than if you only had 200k equity and no cash? What are the credit companies going to do, take your social security money?

Will this be the retirement plan of the future?

Can anyone answer this? It got buried in the last few pages with no responses. Children aren't liable for the money. If you die with credit card debt, it may be taken out of your estate but why would you care if you have no estate?
You didnt get an answer because you missed the entire nature of this board. No one here is trying to be sneaky or get away with anything (for the most part ). Its about understanding the rules and using them to our advantage. The credit card companies offer up an incentive, and we take advantage of the incentive not the company.

OK I was hoping someone could point me to a link here on FW that has all the best 0% offers and/or bonuses available for someone getting ready to do an App-O-Rama.

Thanks,

SecretSaver