sonnysighedup - It really just dawned on me yesterday to call around and see who would send BT checks to me. I think with AMEX and Discover sending theirs out, I should be good for a little while. I will call up PenFed tonight and see if they can send it to me. Better to have them waiting to use at home instead of the 7-10 days that it takes. I am a little hesitant to have them send a BT check to a savings account since they originally said they don't do that. I don't want to jeopardize my nice 25K line, and I also have my 1st and 2nd mortgage with them; so I am going to play it safer with them than other companies.

charliek - No worries, thanks for the heads up.

robertw477 - I did have a little trouble with the PNC business card. They rejected me initially because they couldn't verify my information. I am faxing stuff over to them today, so hopefully that will get straightened out. I am not sure what kind of credit line they will give, but they only gave me $5,000 on the personal line, so 15-20K might be overly optimistic. I reported 60K personal income, and 100 business income. If your numbers are higher you might have a better chance.

My advanta BT posted to my checking account, so that one is official. I am also going today to deposit my chase/sony BT check for 16,000 (18,000 CL after reallocating). I also signed up for yodlee, which I am already addicted to.

Thanks everyone for the comments!

I got my Discover Business card ($5,000), and some Pulaski info. I was approved for Pulaski at $8,000, and they sent some BT checks. They have a warning on them "VALID FOR BALANCE TRANSFER ONLY." This scared me a little bit, and in the T&C it states that they can refuse the check, "if the check was written for a purpose other than transferring the balance of another credit account." I think they would have a very hard time proving this, "purpose" is subjective, and it doesn't say that I have to use the whole balance to transfer another credit account. I might be over-analyzing this one.

I called PNC, and they put me on hold like you, but they said the "credit analyst" was not able to approve me immediately, and to call back tomorrow. I got worried because I thought they were going to do a hard pull, but she said that they review the original application. I checked and nothing yet, so we will see tomorrow.

PenFed does not send out BT checks (promotions only), but they do send out cash advance checks. The problem is that for the first 60 days the account is open, you are limited to $500/day. No point in killing some trees for that.

charliek - I think I love you. PNC raised my CL from 5,000 to 10,000, effectively doubling the amount of money that I will make from them - Thanks!

Also, my Citi reallocation finally came through. I took 3000 from the CitiBusiness card and put it in on the PremierPass card. In summary, I was able to reallocate credit between two Citi Business cards. I was told by one CSR that this was impossible. Moral of the story - if you don't get an answer you like from one CSR, call back and try another.

yoim21 said:About Money Return Platinum Plus Visa,I got approved and got a card ,so i called
to do BT .I saw No BT fee on BOA site when I applied and still there.I was told I need to do BT on application if I want to get no BT fee.What is your situation?
horse-pooee. Call up again and get a different CSR who knows what they are doing. It took me three calls to get someone who could reallocate my credit. The other two said, No - we can't do that.

I didn't pay a BT fee, and you shouldn't have to either.

rivler,

Could you share how much the BT fees are for Advanta, BoA, and PNC? I'm going through all the sites, and I found PNC says "Balance Transfer fee of 3%, $5 minimum" and I think the other two also left language open to no cap?

Thanks!


EDIT: Nevermind on PNC, I didn't see on the side where it says "0% APR1 for 12 full months on both purchases and balance transfers with no balance transfer fees"

Sorry, I must have been too immersed in the USC game on Saturday...

davef139 said:you BT'd ALLOT of that money I wouldnt have done much more tehn 50% on each those cards. HELLO FR!
Maybe, but we'll see.

About 25% of the money is from biz accounts, so that doesn't show up on the credit report. Issuers must still honor the terms of the BT, and I didn't lie about my household income. No card is > 90% utilization, and 1/3 of the money is only 0% for 6 mo.

bongoking said:to get the BT check from PNC did you had to call them ?
or asking for convenience check online is the same thing ?
The BT check was sent automatically for the personal account - however, it took 4 weeks to arrive. I decided to wait for it instead of having them send a check out themselves. I thought it would arrive much sooner.

When I got the biz account, I had them send a BT check to Discover right away. That took almost two weeks.

So, if you have another card to send the BT to, I think that is much better than waiting for the BT checks to come almost a month later.

bongoking said:thanks.

so convenience check is different, it would be considered a cash advance and thus not be at 0% ?

It's always a bit tricky when you are not a native speaker, to understand everything right and trust yourself.

I just opened a citi card so I can bt there since I've read it's easy to ask credit balance check from them, but I don't have their response yet, it's been 8 days. I tried overpaying a chase card, and requested a check and it took them a month (it arrived yesterday), so would rather avoid them.

Well, convenience checks can be considered a BT or can be a cash advance. You don't really know until you look at the specific terms with the check. It's confusing to me as well since the term is used interchangeably between BT and cash advance. If you need help figuring out what a certain check means, post it here or PM me, and I'll help you figure it out.

Citi is probably the best to overpay with. Check out the Citi threads for issues related to that.

pakesack said:Did you have to do the BT during the CC application? I just got my BofA Money Return card today, and it states that I have a 3% (no cap) transaction fee. I called twice to see if they will waive it, but no luck both times.

therivler1 said:As stated in the OP:
Advanta: 3% <=$50
BofA Money Return Visa Platinum Plus-no BT fee

Do you have the Platinum Plus version? If not, this is where the difference lies. I did not do a BT with application, and the fee has been waived for both BTs that I have done.