WashWest101's Long Distance Runner App-o-Rama, updated 3/8

Goals
1. Earn $4000-6000 in interest money by April 2008 (enough to max out my Roth IRA and possibly my wife's), while keeping utilization below 50%.
2. Keep credit scores high enough that i will have a wealth of attractive 0% BT offers to roll over balances rather than pay them off as promo rates expire. I'm treating this like a marathon, not a sprint.

Inspiration for this post
1. steevyniu2004's carefully planned, well-explained AOR thread
2. Rasher's detailed AOR thread with daily in progress updates
I hope this thread will be half as useful to someone as those were to me.

Preparation
1. Requested CLI on 3 of 5 existing cards (see below). Added more than $14k to available credit
2. Bought Equifax FICO. Score of 791 on 1/23
3. Opened new checking/savings accounts
**Everbank checking - all my BT money will start here, until the 6% promo rate ends
**PenFed, Addison Avenue - access to credit cards with no BT/cash advance fees
**GMAC MM savings
4. Applied for Advanta Platinum Business Card, 0% BT for 15 months; 3% fee, max $50, including convenience checks
**I applied before starting AOR, thinking it was independent of my personal credit report – first mistake. They did a hard pull (TransUnion). Looking back this info was on FWF, but i missed it.
5. Applied for PenFed Visa over the phone. (No new credit inquiry, since the one for my checking was so recent.)
6. Signed up for TrueCredit monitoring ($11.21/month through WalMart)

Pre-AOR credit scores (1/27/07)
Experian...... 754 Truecredit FAKO
Equifax.....791 Equifax FICO (Truecredit FAKO was close, 795)
TransUnion 769 Truecredit FAKO

Pre-AOR recent inquiries: 5 (3 TU, 1 Exp, 1 EQ)

Pre-AOR cards (5):
2 BofA, 1 FIA, 1 Citi, 1 Chase
Total CL: $78,900
Total balance: $3,488
Average account age: 4 years

Recently applied for (week before the AOR):
Advanta Business (0% on BT for 15 months) - Applied 1/22, Approved, $12,500
Pen Fed Visa Platinum Rewards (no-fee BT) - Applied 1/26, Approved, $20,000

Date of AOR: Tuesday, 1/30, from 10:30 am to 12:45 pm

Cards Applied for (in order)
1. PNC Bank Select Rewards Visa (Elan)....... Approved, $24,000 CL
2. State Farm Good Neighbor Visa ...... Deferred, Approved, $24,000 CL
3. Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards AMEX (+10,000 TY points) Approved, $5,700 CL
4. Citi AT&T Universal ($30 Cardoffers bonus).....Deferred... Approved 2/1/07
5. BofA Financial Rewards ........Deferred... Approved, $7,500 CL
6. Commerce Visa Platinum ........Deferred... Denied 2/2/07
7. AMEX IN:NYC ($40 Cardoffers bonus).............. Approved, $24,000 CL
8. Chase Visa Free Cash Rewards ........Deferred..... Approved, $6,000 CL
9. CitiBusiness Card MC (+15,000 TY points after 1st purchase) Deferred Approved, $15,000 CL
10. BofA Platinum Visa Business ......................Deferred Approved, $25,000 CL
11. Discover Platinum ($60 after purchase).. Deferred... Approved, $8,000 CL

3 weeks later: AMEX Business Gold Rewards Card (250,000 points).... Applied 2/21, Instant Approval, no CL, will not use for BT

Credit Bureaus pulled
TransUnion: Citi (3x), Advanta, Elan/PNC, FirstUSA/Chase, State Farm**, Commerce
Equifax: PenFed, Discover
Experian: BofA, AMEX (2x)

**Warning: SleepyNyte and cyberkost have reported multiple pulls from State Farm.

Early lessons learned
1. Don't worry about setting up bank accounts until after the AOR. I suspect that having two recent hard inquiries from (Everbank and Pen Fed) didn't help with my applications.
2. Be patient. Jumping the gun on the Advanta Business card (applying a week before the AOR) didn't help either, nor did the Chase Sony card i got in December.

Next steps
1. Wait for cards to roll in, then harvest BT cash.
2. Continue to pull reports at TrueCredit every 24 hours to bump inquiries from TU/EQ.

Who Will BT to Checking?
1. Advanta: Yes (via telephone)
2. AMEX NYC: No
3. BofA Financial Rewards: Yes (via telephone)
4. State Farm: No. Also sent cash advance checks not BT checks - beware.
5. PNC: Not by phone. Sent no-fee BT checks 3 weeks after approval.
6. Citi DPRA: Yes (via telephone). Also sent no-fee BT checks 2 weeks after approval.
7. Chase Cash Rewards: Not by phone. Sent BT checks shortly after approval, 3% fee applies.
8. BofA Business: Yes (via telephone). Also sent no-fee BT checks 2 weeks after approval.

Balance Transfers - all are 0% for 12 months with no-fee unless noted otherwise.
1. Advanta: Transferred $6k (48% util) to checking, 0% for 15 months, $50 BT fee.
2. AMEX NYC: Transferred $11.9k (49% util) to Citi/Chase cards, 0% for 6 months, no fee.
3. BofA Financial Rewards: Transferred $15k (49% util) to checking.
4. State Farm: Transferred $12k (under 50%), laundered through BofA, 0% for 9 months.
5. PNC: Transferred $11k (under 50%), laundered through BofA.
6. Citi DPRA: Transferred $15k (70%) to checking.
7. Chase Cash Rewards: Transferred $8k (under 50%) to checking, $75 fee.
8. BofA Business: Transfered $22k (under 90%) to checking, 0% for 6 months, no fee.

Total: $101,000 of BT money, about half of it free for 6 months.

just a quick comment. PenFed recently changed its cards around a little. For example, you used to be able to do BT's on the plat reward cards, after the change you cant do it at the lower rate anymore. So i would suggest you call them to confirm that you can do cash advances on the Plat Reward Card with no fees.

Get several credit union cards with no cash advance fees, and do cash advance to CU savings (risky, as outlined by davelanton here)
Based on lanton's method, his timeline was large credit balance then check request. From my readings this does setoff a lot of flags. Had he done the check request first and then got the BT to go through to get back to 0 balance, he may have been a lot better off. Costs a few dollars in interest, but better than getting your accounts closed (depending on the account...)

Just a thought: I don't see any new Chase cards on your list. I have had great success with them (yes, I know some FW folks haven't). Might want to add some of their cards. They have a business card that I use--the Chase Professional--that has 3% rebates on restaurants, office supplies and home improvement stores, AND a 0% 12 month BT with $75 max. And it does NOT hit your personal credit report.

Jim

WashWest said: Commerce Visa Platinum Credit Card (2.9% for 6 months on BT and cash advances)
If you care at all about the card (e.g. for no BT or Cash Advance fees), you may want to apply early in the day rather than late. They were one of my few rejections (too many inquiries).

i'll have to time the transfers so i don't pay interest for more than a day or two
BTs can take a wildly different amount of time from different banks. So, it's good in theory but if you set your expectations too high you may be disappointed. A better metric: do you save enough compared to the time delay for various alternatives.

jelifah said: Any reason you are using Everbank as your BT starting point? HSBC is offering a 6% return good until April.

Since i have the Everbank set up, i'm going to stick with that. When the Everbank promo expires (late March), i'm going to go with the Amboy Preium Savings 5.35% APY account (assuming i can actually get $20,000 to invest - see update above).

WashWest—

I did a fairly similar AOR in December, although perhaps not as well planned as yours. I also jumped the gun with the Advanta card, and as a result my Discover Platinum app was rejected due to too many new accounts. I've now gotten my Advanta card, and am preparing to BT to my Citi debit card (thus into my Citi checking account and straight from there to my Capital One Costco MMA). My questions to you are:

-It sounds like you BTed from Advanta (a business account) into your personal checking account. There's been some discussion on FW about whether they'll do this. Did they give you a hard time about it or ask any questions about the nature of your account?

-You BTed $6000. What fraction of your Advanta CL is that?

Thanks,

yeastbeast

Day 3

Approved for two more cards: AT&T Universal and Discover. The AT&T e-mail states: "Some details of your Card Agreement may be different from the terms that were disclosed on your application. Please be sure to review your Card Agreement for any changes." They better not take away my no-fee BT!

No big changes in the TrueCredit FAKOs. Exp and EQ stayed the same, TU dropped two points (757 --> 755) after a pull from Commerce.

I'll update the OP to show which card pulled which CRA.

Day 5-7
Approved for the Chase Free Cash Rewards, $6000 CL. Reallocated a few grand from my existing Chase card to get up to $11,000. With a $75 BT fee, it's barely worth it to transfer only $5400 (49% util). I am tempted to go to 89% here.

Reallocated CL from other BofA cards to get the BofA Financial Rewards card up to $30,300. 0% APR only lasts for 6 months, so i'm tempted to transfer up to 89% here too. (No BT fee, however.)

Discover, Citi Diamond Pref and BofA Financial Rewards are reporting on my credit report as of this morning, the first new accounts to appear. FAKO scores holding steady at 750/755/790.

Still waiting to hear from State Farm, CitiBusiness and BofA Business. (Why are the business cards taking so long?)

My application to Juniper (EmigrantDirect card) is still not showing up online or by phone. I had a browser error at the end of my application, but i thought it went through. Guess not. I've removed that one from the list of apps.

Thanks for taking the time to update. Congratulations on your success!

Make sure the conv. checks don't have a cash advance fee. They are sometime uncapped! BofA should be able to ACH the credit balance to checking. Since MBNA took over, I hope it doesn't set off any laundering alerts. Nice CL on the state farm card by the way.

PolarDude said: BofA should be able to ACH the credit balance to checking. Since MBNA took over, I hope it doesn't set off any laundering alerts.

I didn't explain that too clearly. I won't have a credit balance. Here's how I'm using BofA for getting BT cash:

1. BT large sum from BofA to checking
2. Pay off most of that sum with balance transfers from two cards that won't BT to checking
3. Wait until those two transfers clear, lowering my BofA balance to almost $0
4. Use the BofA checks to BT an additional sum to my checking, bringing that card to a comfortable 49% util
5. This spreads the BT cash over 3 cards, keeping them all under 50% util

The disclosure with the checks says there's no fee, and I confirmed it with a CSR on the phone. I'm thinking that using the checks is less likely to set off alerts than doing another BT by phone.

Hope that clears things up.


SleepyNyte said: Why not max this card out? I thought the appeal of this card was that it doesn't show on your personal credit report.

Um, poor strategy? The timidity of a noob doing a first AOR? In retrospect, it would've been better to get more from that card.

OP, how much is BT fee for the Citi Diamond Preferred AMEX? The one I see on FWF is $250.

mrmakochan said: OP, how much is BT fee for the Citi Diamond Preferred AMEX? The one I see on FWF is $250.

Ouch. There's no fee for me. I applied using offer code F1N9.

I just tried that code here and it still works. See this thread for more details.

I got BT checks in the mail, which clearly state no fee. I also verified with CSR when calling to activate the checks.

WashWest101 said: mrmakochan said: OP, how much is BT fee for the Citi Diamond Preferred AMEX? The one I see on FWF is $250.

Ouch. There's no fee for me. I applied using offer code F1N9.

I just tried that code here and it still works. See this thread for more details.

I got BT checks in the mail, which clearly state no fee. I also verified with CSR when calling to activate the checks.

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.

Oops, should have read the rest of the fine print.

BT harvesting is just about complete, just waiting for the BofA Financial Rewards card statement to close, before I BT another $13,000 to checking. That will bring the total to a hair over $100,000. (The card-by-card breakdown is in the first post, if anyone cares to see it.)

About half of that amount is in 6 month promo offers, so I'm looking at about $2000 in net profit from interest by January 2008. If I can move some of the expiring debt to new 0% offers this summer, the profit will increase, of course.

All cards are below 49% util, except for the Citi Diamond Rewards card, which is at 70%. (I'd planned to use it to launder another card, but then didn't need to.) I'll probably leave it at 70%, since overall util is around 40%.

The bonuses have started to roll in:
***$200+ gift cards from Citi
***$250 gift cards from AMEX
***$60 Cash Back from Discover
***$70 cash from Card Offers

I also expect about $350 in bank account bonuses, though some of those will take a while.

Credit scores are starting to fall, as the high balances hit. True Credit is reporting 715/718/793 (TU/Exp/EQ), with several more cards yet to report the big BTs.

I probably won't update again for a while, unless I encounter adverse action or other surprises.

Thanks for your interest, Pakaderm. There's not a whole lot to report. I am making minimum payments and watching the interest add up. It doesn't take much work, after the BT harvesting is done. I set up a spreadsheet with due dates and whatnot, but I don't really use it, since the CC and Yodlee both tell me when new bills are ready to be paid. (With only 8 BT cards, this is manageable.)

Credit scores are: TU-692, Exp-704, EQ-794. Not all BT balances have hit, so they may drop a little bit more.

I pulled all 3 reports with TrueCredit every day for the first 6 weeks, now about every 3 days. No inquiries have been bumped off yet.

Still waiting for a check from cardoffers.com.

WashWest101 said: Thanks for your interest, Pakaderm. There's not a whole lot to report. I am making minimum payments and watching the interest add up. It doesn't take much work, after the BT harvesting is done. I set up a spreadsheet with due dates and whatnot, but I don't really use it, since the CC and Yodlee both tell me when new bills are ready to be paid. (With only 8 BT cards, this is manageable.)

Credit scores are: TU-692, Exp-704, EQ-794. Not all BT balances have hit, so they may drop a little bit more.

I pulled all 3 reports with TrueCredit every day for the first 6 weeks, now about every 3 days. No inquiries have been bumped off yet.

Still waiting for a check from cardoffers.com.

Looks like things worked well for you. Even at this point you have three scores at or above 700 which is still considered A credit to most lenders etc. I pull TrueCredit daily. I have been able to knock some inqs off in time for my first organized offical AOR. I will probably apply for a similar number of cards as you have....Robert