New Citi offer, no fee BT till 12/01/07, 10,000 TY points after 1st purchase

dcyahoo said: No fee BT until 12/01/07

From the terms and conditions:

Transaction fee for balance transfers: 3% of the amount of each balance transfer, $5 minimum, $250 maximum. However, there is no fee with the 0.00% APR balance transfer offer described above.

Good find OP

kingfrugal said: where does it say 10,000 points after first purchase?On Sunday Newpaper SmartSource flyer, you have to do your first purchase within 3 months of becoming a cardmember to get the bonus 10,000 TY points.

Offer expires 01/15/07


invisible said: Thanks OP. Do they apply (immediate, full) payment for the first purchase to the purchase itself or to the outstanding 0% APR BT first ?I do not know, usually credit card companies are not charities, they will charge whatever is possible to their favor, and I would assume payment goes to BT first. It would be a common practice for FWers to separate purchase from BT cards. If you do want to get both 10,000 TY points and no fee BT, I suggest that you signup online pay, do one purchase, immediately pay full amount. Then, Wait until your first statement available on line, make sure it has zero balance then you perform BT.

Good luck.

JoJoBoi said: Couldn't you make a 1 cent purchase to qualify for the TY points and just pay the interest on 1 cent while doing a BT?
Most have a minimum finance charge. I think for cit it is $0.50 per statement cycle. So you will end up paying about $6 (12 cycles) if you dont first payoff the purchase.

As dcyahoo pointed out, it is safe to wait for a statement after you have paid off the initial purchase. However, you should be o.k. as long as the payment has posted and your current balance is $0.00. YMMV.

burningrave101 said: uutxs said: JoJoBoi said: Couldn't you make a 1 cent purchase to qualify for the TY points and just pay the interest on 1 cent while doing a BT?
Most have a minimum finance charge. I think for cit it is $0.50 per statement cycle. So you will end up paying about $6 (12 cycles) if you dont first payoff the purchase.

As dcyahoo pointed out, it is safe to wait for a statement after you have paid off the initial purchase. However, you should be o.k. as long as the payment has posted and your current balance is $0.00. YMMV.

Yeah, just make a purchase and immediately go online and pay your current balance in full as soon as it shows up on the account and once the payment posts to your account you can call and do the balance transfer.

This is exactly how I've gotten around this obstacle.

burningrave101 said: uutxs said: JoJoBoi said: Couldn't you make a 1 cent purchase to qualify for the TY points and just pay the interest on 1 cent while doing a BT?
Most have a minimum finance charge. I think for cit it is $0.50 per statement cycle. So you will end up paying about $6 (12 cycles) if you dont first payoff the purchase.

As dcyahoo pointed out, it is safe to wait for a statement after you have paid off the initial purchase. However, you should be o.k. as long as the payment has posted and your current balance is $0.00. YMMV.

Yeah, just make a purchase and immediately go online and pay your current balance in full as soon as it shows up on the account and once the payment posts to your account you can call and do the balance transfer.


Something else that should be considered. Since this is a fixed-window BT offer, (e.g. No fee BT until 12/01/07), you need to make sure you are actually making money by delaying the BT. Take this example:

If you do a $10,000 BT and put it in a 5% interest savings account, you make ~$1.37/day. With the $6 in interest a purchase will cost you over the year, you are better off doing the BT immediately if the charge will take longer than ~4.38 days to post and pay off. Every day you waste beyond that 4 days costs you $1.37 in interest. On the upside, the CC company may look favorably upon you for paying interest every month (obviously this can't be proven). Take the $10K BT example and change it to $20K and you are losing money after ~2 days. $30K and you are losing money after ~1 day. This does not take into account income taxes on the 1099 interest, but you get the idea.

yanjun851 said: I guess 10,000 Points ($100) is the incentive to delay the BT

You get the 10,000 points as long as you make a purchase which you would do either way.

This might be answered in another thread, but what good are these citi AMEX cards....the bt ops with citi are valuable to me because you can consolidate/reallocate limits...looks like all of my cards are mastercard...I doubt you can move limits between the AMEX and mastercard cards...?

linedrivekid123 said: im new to credit cards but can i get this card, get a $10,000 BT to put in a 5% savings account and basically make $500 from the credit card company?

Pretty much (assuming you don't tie up too much of your overall available credit with this BT - even then you could do that if you don't mind your credit scores taking big hits).

Xeon852 said: yanjun851 said: Snyder81 said: yanjun851 said: I guess 10,000 Points ($100) is the incentive to delay the BT

You get the 10,000 points as long as you make a purchase which you would do either way.

Then you get financial charge on the purchase.
Yes, but the point is that 1 months lost interest is greater than the minimum finance charge ($6 over a year).

I see. Thanks

Congratulations, XXXXX! You have been approved
for a Citi® Diamond Preferred® Rewards American Express® Card account with the following:


Initial Credit Line: $3,000.00
Purchase APR: Prime rate + 6.99%, currently 15.24%.
Balance Transfer APR: 0.0% until 12/01/2007. Thereafter, Prime rate + 6.99%, currently 15.24%.

awesome find OP! just what I was looking for, I got 4500 credit (bleh) but my gf who really needs it got 12k! thanks again

dcyahoo said: kingfrugal said: where does it say 10,000 points after first purchase?On Sunday Newpaper SmartSource flyer, you have to do your first purchase within 3 months of becoming a cardmember to get the bonus 10,000 TY points.

Offer expires 01/15/07

Good luck.

Green for OP.

I'm planning to get rid of the professional card and get this one.
Can I just move the credit line from professional card to this ?
If it can't be done I'll cancel the other card and apply for this.
Let me know if anyone done this earlier.

dcyahoo : Is is possible to post a scan of the newspaper ad ?
Would like to keep a copy of the AD for records.

Thanks,
Acura03

i have a question is this one of the cards where you can use the points to earn free airline tickets? i know it might sound stupid but i can't seem to find the credit card that gives you free miles.

xyzhu2 said: For those who have been approved, would you please verify if this card allows you to make BT online and transfer money to your bank account? I have two citi cards. Both allow me to transfer money to a bank account. Thanks.

Stoopid noob question, but why wouldn't that be treated as a cash advance and not a balance transfer?

LordKronos said: browncoat said: why wouldn't that be treated as a cash advance and not a balance transfer?

It would seem like a cash advance, but they've been treating it as a BT for at least a year and a half (or at least they do with most of the initial 0% offers).

Okay, another stoopid noob question... please bear with em, this is all new to me...

How about getting a BT to pay off a signature loan at a bank? The wife is attempting to establish her own credit in case I croak, she has a $3500 loan with the bank. I know you can do a BT to pay off other cards, but how about signature loans?

this card has price protection....works like bvg for AMEX

can't you relocate credit from Citi ?

payment is always applied to the bal tran first.
so it looks like the purchase/bonus points would have to wait until the bt was paid off. Or buy something for $1. and pay 12*.50/mo=$6.00 for the points now.

acura03 said: ...CSR's have no clue how to relocate the CL... It could be natural that the application CSR has no clue on CL relocation. These CSRs are not as sophisticated as our FWers . Once you have the card, call the 800 number on the back of the card, and usually Citi is quite easy on CL relocation, please search FWF on this topic. I have done it once from Citi MC to Citi AMEX about two month ago.


02000 said: ... Or buy something for $1. and pay 12*.50/mo=$6.00 for the points now... If you insist to mix purchase and BT, you can buy up to about $39.37 to have the same 12*.50/mo=$6.00 charge.