lhendricks92's AOR v2.0 and subsequent rolling thunder...

Ah, yes. The elusive "should have been following that thread since it has become important and over 100 posts" thread.

I also find that I get a different answer with a different Citi CSR each time I call. It has ranged from "We don't allow any consolidation at all" to "You cannot consolidate any 0% offers" to "You can only consolidate a Visa to Visa or MC to MC" to "Sure we can consolidate that for you, would you like me to enter in the request?".

gorenbeinx said: Just to clarify, you entered your savings account# with USAA for a BT with M&T Bank and not a 16 dig. debit card number?

correct. used the deposits-by-mail address and my less-than-16-digit savings account number. YMMV, of course.

yet another Citi reallocation update - Checked online today, and no reallocation. Called Citi. This time (should have done this earlier), I immediately asked to speak with a supervisor. Supervisor says you can't move the CL from an AM.EX CARD. Visa or MC, no problem. Asked to convert the Diamond AMEX to a Dividend Platinum Master Card. Once the conversion goes through, I'll try again with the reallocation. Damn, what a PITA.

Don't they realize we're just trying to milk them for every dollar possible?

lhendricks92 said: BankAtlantic Biz - Got the card on Saturday and immediately called for a BT. Had to leave $250 available CL, so I uncorked a $19675 BT (+$75 BT fee). Showed up 2 days later on my Fidelity billpay card.

Is this card your American Express Gold Fidelity debit card?

updated the QS with my "final" numbers. as an example of the power of business credit, let me point out a couple of things:

In total, I'm currently floating $278K in 0% BT balances. Of that total, only $95K is personal debt; thus, my overall personal utilization is a whopping 23%. all of my new debt has appeared on my credit reports, and my EQ FICO is still around 760.

Two days ago, I got a targeted BofA Business MasterCard offer for 0% for 12 months with a capped fee. Think that would have happened if I had trashed my personal score? Prolly not.

markkundinger said: lh, I just noticed that M&T's personal cards are issued by FIA, and their business cards are issued by Elan. That's crazy. What kind of deal did you have on the M&T card, btw, a 6mo 0% offer?


yep, 6 months. There are a whole slew of élan business deals for 0%, 6 months, no fees.


markkundinger said: Well, it probably would have, since they credit report they used to target you was probably a few months old.

good point, but a few months ago, i was using the same strategy. unless they pulled during the very small window between my first and second AORs, they would have seen my less-than-perfect-but-not-trashed FICO.


markkundinger said: I would like to be a bit of a wet blanket and mention one thing about your enthusiasm for business cards: You actually have a real business, don't you?. Which banks asked you for business specific sales/earnings info, and what did you put in for those?

Another good point, but I'm not convinced the amount of business income really matters. Look at MikeR's data points. What really matters is your personal credit - that's what's being evaluated (mostly) for business credit. Very few of the business cards I applied for wanted more info than gross sales. Our gross sales aren't excessive – currently about $45K/year. (They used to be much higher – damn I miss the heady IT days of the late 90s/early 2000s.) Numbers that are certainly not enough to justify the business CL I’ve been able to attract.

Yes, I have been aggressive in championing business credit, but it’s only because I want to see other people max out their BT profits with minimal personal credit damage. I enjoy having my cake and eating it, too, don’t you?

lhendricks92 said: Two days ago, I got a targeted BofA Business MasterCard offer for 0% for 12 months with a capped fee. Think that would have happened if I had trashed my personal score? Prolly not.Not to mention you are doing a bump o rama, so that helps with the inquiries for the new application. Make sure most the inquiries are gone so you don't risk a chance of being turned down for excessive inquiries (I'm sure you are aware of this, but just in case, couldn't hurt to mention it). Damn this AoR game is addictive. I'm going start going through withdrawal soon here.

MikeR397 said: I've also had a Citi reallocation problem. Tried moving 6.8k from an old Citi AT&T to new Citi Upromise (both MC). Monday they said no problem, and put the request in. Last night, I called and they said they can't do it b/c they cannot move CL to a card with a 0% BT promo. Jerks. Ok, so I got the new Citi AT&T universal "REWARDS", and called to get the old Citi AT&T "Platinum" consolidated to the new card (this new card also has the 0% promotion). This time the rep said sure we can do it, gave me the approval over the phone and I saw the credit line increase from 7.5 to 14.3k within 24 hours online. Called in, had them mail me a BT check today. So moral of the story, apparantly Citi is super flaky with CL consolidation, so just keep trying different reps for awhile.

gorenbeinx said: lhendricks92 said: gorenbeinx said: Just to clarify, you entered your savings account# with USAA for a BT with M&T Bank and not a 16 dig. debit card number?

correct. used the deposits-by-mail address and my less-than-16-digit savings account number. YMMV, of course.

I tried your trick of just entering a savings account # for the online M&T BT about 2 weeks ago and nothing has gone through yet. Just before yours showed up, was there any evidence that it was processing (email confirmation, pending transaction showing on elan, available credit deduction)? I would call them, but of course I don't really want the CSR to see that I was trying to move the funds directly to savings. Thanks.

yeah, it took awhile. there was little to no evidence of the request online. i called them - wasn't a problem, and they had more info on their end.

jairocon said: lhendricks - have you figured out whether BankAtlantic could be billpaid through MBNA? I have a feeling that I'm going to have to be sending payments directly to this card.

Btw - if you get a chance - please bump my request on yodlee forums for them to add bankatlantic to yodlee.
Funny- I'm looking at the BankAtlantic statement on top of my desk and trying to figure out how best to pay it. I couldn't find it in BoA/MBNA BillPay and sent BoA a request to add support for it. PS, I bumped your yodlee request.

Oh, so barclays was attempted through MBNA billpay and just failed? I guess that means my test payment will fail also.

Once I get my first BankAtlantic bill, I'm going to try low-tech setup in Fidelity billpay and see what happens (I'm going to be using them for Capone anyway). Otherwise, BankAtlantic's site lets you schedule payments on specific dates, so it shouldn't be too horrible.

gorenbeinx said: I would greatly appreciate your input on a BT dilemma I'm having. I just reallocated my personal and business Citibank cards resulting in a $42K personal line and a $64K bus. line. Both cards have identical BT promo offers (0% for 12mo. from date of 1st BT and NBTF). My initial plan was to do 2 separate BTs (89% util personal and 99% bus.), but now I'm thinking I should try to reallocate all to the business card and do a (GULP!) $105,000 BT check request.

Any opinions on this idea? I didn't want to make a hasty decision and then realize I didn't consider something important. Thanks.

I would venture to say 105,000 (off cr report) vs 101,800 (37800 on cr report) depends on your overall utilization. Would the 37800 put you over 50% total utilization???

Assuming another AOR in a year, and the 0% BT offers aren't all gone in a year...

I've always wondered about those who do this Citi BT one card for 11 months, pay off, reallocate, BT second card for another year. Unless you have some careful timing to float the BT balance, I would think that having a large BT showing on CR wouldn't be the best when conducting a second AOR. I almost think it would be more simple to apply for both cards, reallocate/consolidate to one offer. Then just apply for a new offer the second year. Please explain if I'm missing anything.

markkundinger said: lhendricks92 said: i didn't get far enough to make a test payment. billpay said something like "this card number isn't recognized as a barclays account."
Well, it's been a couple of days since my MBNA test payment to BankAtlantic should have worked, and it hasn't. So I think that means it won't.

Now it's a toss-up between trying Fidelity billpay for it, or just using the BankAtlantic site.

FYI, Fidelity billpay will mail a check.

Have you guys figured out if you can pay Principal/Infibank/FNBO with MBNA billpay?

ChumChurum said: lhendricks92 - sorry, did not mean to hi-jack your thread, but since this came up, I thought you would not mind if I asked.

no problem.

it's my understanding that the only way you can turn on MBNA billpay using a credit card is by having at least one MBNA card before the merger with BofA was complete. I totally lucked out when my wife got a Fidelity Visa card last October. If you applied for one today, you wouldn't get the billpay feature.

updated the QS to reflect the Barclays shift from personal to business.

also, removed this:

Credit Card Interest Rate Arbitrage: Maximum Earnings Calculator

MadMark, that calculator doesn't take into account minimum payments.

lhendricks92 said: quick update...

decided to take some of my BT money off my personal report by shifting all my Barclays BT action to the business side. Paid off the National Parks card, reallocated $23K to BankAltantic biz, and requested another $23K BT from BankATL. Had to pay another $75 fee, but I'll get an extra 3 months on that money.

I thought BankAtlantic has the 20K limit per BT. Did they lift that restriction or you manage to make them waive the fee like last time?