Credit Card AoR 0% Help --- My first FW posting!

Don't include loans as income.

I don't know definitively, but you probably shouldn't count scholarships as income (do you get taxed on them? If so, they're income).

If you're living at home, then your folks' income generally counts as "HHI".

I think the primary question would be if an AOR will affect your stafford loans in any way. Does your credit score matter? Will having a large amount of temporary assets (and corresponding debt) matter? I don't know the answer.

But if your student loans are already locked up, then I saw go for it!

- If there is any possibility of doing credit line reallocation, or BT delaying, then I generally recommend not requesting a BT with the app, so you can get your ducks in a row before you start firing off transaction anywhere. While there's a chance that doing a BT request with the app will increase the odds of getting a large CL, it's not usually that significant.

- Your results on an AOR would probably be all over the map, with some really great results and some paltry ones.

MikeR397 said: I have indeed decided to do a lot more offers than originally planned. I'm looking around 15-20 right now in total and I will be doing them all on a Monday morning to hopefully minimize credit inquiries reported. First a few more questions:

1) Is 89% the magic number to stay under per card utilization?
2) What overall percent utilization for all my credit cards should I stay under?

To markkundinger: I agree that loans should not be included in HHI. However, scholarship money is a form of income although it is not taxed. Also, eligiblity for stafford student loans does not matter about FICO or credit history, they are basically guaranteed and I have already been approved for them (though they will not be issued to me until August; this is another reason I want to do my AoR before August becuase the student loans are reported to my credit history though and will show the credit card companies I have more debt).

I called Discover about the HHI. They told me that "if I live at home and my parents would be willing to help me with debt if the need arose, then I can include thier income." It sounded like a very loose basis for determining HHI, which is very good. I am going to call all credit card companies I will apply to and ask them these questions first and get thier names and employee numbers just to be safe (I have made a informal, nonchalant questioning technique where I find out all the specifics from the companys without directly pointing out my intentions).

Finally, I think you are right about waiting for the BT until after being approved. I am asking first how long I have to get the 0% BT rate, but I do want to get approved for everything in one day if possible.

As I'm going to be in school for three more years and will not be buying a house for at least 4 years. I see no reason not to go crazy with this and get as much 0% BT credit as possible and who cares about the temporary credit rating dive. It will go up in time from the inquiries and when I pay back balances. It may even be higher than it was when I started at the end. Plus, I will have a LOT of existing credit that I assume I can likely reallocate to new cards for a "easy" second round of AoR (with less cards total but with higher limits due to rolling over limits".

I have to be honest, I'm pretty excited about this whole thing. I just discovered this process 4 days ago and am ready to go! If I can get 125k or more CL and do this during law school, my earned interest will cover an entire year of tuition at law school! Not to mention it will be tax free for me due to low wages/tuition deduction/student loan interest deduction/standard tax deduction!


Whoa cowboy - read up on some adverse action threads first before you pull the trigger.

Tolik: I'm headed to Ohio State Moritz Law School which is 31st in country I believe. It is solid and cheap for in-state residents (2006 was 17.5k tuition). Also, I am not using ANY of this 0% BT money for anything but earning interest, period! I am making a separate savings account at FBNO Direct (6% APY interest until Sept. 28 2007) and depositing the money there. I will set up all the credit cards to automatically collect the minimum payments from this new savings account, and once everything is up and automated, I will sit back and watch the interest climb until I pay off the balances in full at the end (and prepare for AOR round 2 hopefully!)

I will send in between 15 to 20 applications (2/3 to each card company). My goal (hopefully conservative and achievable) is to get 105k CL form 0% BT, take 93k of the available 105k and stick all of it in my shiny new savings account and watch it grow. This way my total credit utilization of new and old cards will be less than 50% and I won't have any single card over 89% utilization. It will also allow my savings account to grow with interest and still be completely FDIC covered for the whole time.

Now, if I get luckey and get over 105k in CL, then I'll simply open up a second savings account at a different bank (to be FDIC insured) such as EmigrantDirect(5.05%) or ELOAN(5.25%). I'll just link the credit cards I deposited in the second bank to deduct minimum payments from there. This would be pretty sweet, but if I get 105k CL from my apps, I'll be a happy customer.

As long as you're clear on what this will do to your credit, and how it will essentially make you inelgible for any loans, go for it.

At that tuition Ohio State is ok if you plan to stay in Ohio. Good luck!

Another thing...you should be careful about setting up automatic electronic payments to the credit cards from a savings account, i.e. the limit of 6 transactions (transfers or withdrawals) from a savings account per month. You might want to check that out since the bank could shut you down for excessive transactions.

MikeR397 said: Good info about max bank transfers, I hadn't thought of that as my banks do not have that policy. I was actually planning on pulling the money in by having each credit card subtract the money from the bank, rather than having the bank push the money out (assuming this options is available).

How long, if I apply online, will I know about my Cl's being issued? I really don't want to end up with 10-15 5k credit lines that are going to drastically drop average credit line for my credit score, not to mention profit opportunity? Do they tell you right away in an email usually or do you have to wait a few days? Will having 15 smaller Cl's hurt my score in the long run? I assume I could always realocate them later and close the smaller Cl ones. Anyone know?

1) Even six figure income earners with million dollar net worths (Dolmar and Scott) still occasionally get $10-$15K credit lines. You have done very well for yourself at the age of 22 but I think you are setting your sites to high if you expect $25K lines across the board.

2) The fact that the accounts are new will hurt your credit score. Your utilization, if too high, will hurt your credit score. However, as long as the utilization is equal, it doesn't really matter if your CL is $500 or $50,000 in terms of your credit score. As far as I know, there is no such thing as an "average credit line" credit score factor.

The newness will "age" and in 10 years you'll be glad you had those cards. The utilization ding will go away the month you pay them back. The downsides are temporary, I wouldn't let the fear of $5K credit lines stop you.

MikeR397 said:
How long, if I apply online, will I know about my Cl's being issued? I really don't want to end up with 10-15 5k credit lines that are going to drastically drop average credit line for my credit score, not to mention profit opportunity? Do they tell you right away in an email usually or do you have to wait a few days?
Some tell you instantly and some you wait. One thing I learned from my AoR was to ask for increase right away on any CL I felt was to low, This way you do not get a second pull. Problem is it wont work for you as they will want to see 2 years of taxes and bank statements. You wont be able to send in parents income and yours alone would get you in trouble. So it's up to you to decide if you can deal with a bunch of low limit cards

Thanks for the good advice, it saved a lot of headach. I called FNBO and they said I have a 6 transaction limit, so I would have been only able to pay 6 cards though them (including if the cards pull the $). Then I called EmigrantDirect and was informed that although they let me have a (only one now) credit card pull money from the account currently, they will not allow any more and will soon not even allow me to do this one credit card pull at all (I can only transfer money to/from bank account).

I am planning on doing the AoR on Monday. I will try to get all credit card payments due on a Tuesday. I plan to use FNBO at 6% (at least until October), have it automatically transfer enough to cover the minimum payments on the Wednesday before payment date to my checking account. Then I'll have the credit cards pull the money from my checking on the Friday before the payment (actual payment date next tuesday). That should be sufficient to cover all transfer delays. Opinions?

Hopefully, if I can get over 100k, I'll either have to set up another FBNO acct (joint or change beneficiary to be FDIC insured, i have to look into this more) or use my EmigrantDirect account at 5.05% interest.

I did call Discover, National City, and talked with BoA online, and I got 4 different people (and twice in writing) saying that I should include my parents income and list my address as my home address, not college address. So I assume I am covered there. Since I'm listing 160k HHI, I hope that the average CL on each card will be 10k, which will result in 200k total CL (20 applications, see below), of which I will utilize 89% of (maybe less to keep total credit utilization under 65%). But again, I really don't care about credit score for the next three years so why not utilize a lot of the BT money.

Below are the 20 applications I plan to do on Monday. I will do a max of two from each company and start with all the 12 months cards then get into the 6 month cards if all is going well and I'm still getting approved. All cards are 0% BT, all 12 month terms(except Citi with $0) have a $75 max BT transfer, and half 6 month cards have $0 BT fee up to a $75 fee at fifth third (but I've already banked there for a long time and they will be easy).

Number Card Term
1 Citi AT&T Platinum Card 12 months
2 Citi Driver's Edge Platinum 12
3 Disocover More 12
4 Discover Miles 12
5 Chase Sony Platnium 12
6 Chase VW Platnium 12
7 First National Platn. Visa 12
8 First National Rewards Plat. 12
9 HSBC GM Flex Card 12
10 HSBC Platinum Rewards 12
11 BoA NFL Card 12

12 BoA Money Return 6
13 National City Visa 6
14 Fifth Third Rewards Master 6
15 Fifth Third Platnium Prime 6
16 Barclays/Juniper B&N 6
17 Barclays/Juniper Racetrac 6
18 Emigrant Direct 6
19 AMEX In: Chicago 6
20 AMEX In: NYC 6

Thanks for the concern, however I was vague with that "First heard about this process" comment. I've seen the BT threads, but they never seemed to apply to me and I never read them seriously becuase I thought my credit score was too low (I checked for the first time in 3 years a few days ago and found out it was 759, which gave me the idea to rexamine the BT threads again). I also thought that applying for more credit was a bad thing (only to become properly educated after reading more). Lastly, before deciding to do law school, I thought I would be wanting to buy a car/house soon and did't want to hurt my credit for that. I don't start law school for 3 months and by then the process should be pretty automated. If theres an issue, I'll just pay back the balances beforehand (but I would likely never do or have to do this).

Two of my undergrad majors are Finance and Economics and I catch on with Financial matters pretty quickly. Now that I've done some heavy reading under much more of the FW Finance section, I'm hooked (and better educated). Thanks for everyone's inputs toward my AoR education.

MikeR397 said: Since I'm listing 160k HHI, I hope that the average CL on each card will be 10k, which will result in 200k total CL (20 applications, see below), of which I will utilize 89% of (maybe less to keep total credit utilization under 65%). ...

Below are the 20 applications I plan to do on Monday. I will do a max of two from each company and start with all the 12 months cards then get into the 6 month cards if all is going well and I'm still getting approved. All cards are 0% BT, all 12 month terms(except Citi with $0) have a $75 max BT transfer, and half 6 month cards have $0 BT fee up to a $75 fee at fifth third (but I've already banked there for a long time and they will be easy).

Number Card Term
1 Citi AT&T Platinum Card 12 months
2 Citi Driver's Edge Platinum 12
3 Disocover More 12
4 Discover Miles 12
5 Chase Sony Platnium 12
6 Chase VW Platnium 12
7 First National Platn. Visa 12
8 First National Rewards Plat. 12
9 HSBC GM Flex Card 12
10 HSBC Platinum Rewards 12
11 BoA NFL Card 12

12 BoA Money Return 6
13 National City Visa 6
14 Fifth Third Rewards Master 6
15 Fifth Third Platnium Prime 6
16 Barclays/Juniper B&N 6
17 Barclays/Juniper Racetrac 6
18 Emigrant Direct 6
19 AMEX In: Chicago 6
20 AMEX In: NYC 6
MikeR397, If you're really serious about this, you may need to rein in your expectations, and do a bit more homework. Yes, you've got the high HHI to report and a couple of really high CLs to make most FWFers envious. However, there are a couple of problems here:

(1) If you read the Credit Card Issuer FAQ, you'll see that your chances of getting more than one app approved with Discover and Juniper are slim to none, yet you have 2 Discover and 3 Juniper apps on your list.

(2) A lot of mid-level issuers also frown on more than one app at a time, so 2 apps each with First National and Fifth Third may be pushing it. Also, if you read the adverse action thread, you'll note that there have been many instances of First National shutting people down for excessive inquiries. If you get a BT in quickly with them before they take action, you'll be ok since you'll be able to pay back the BT under the original terms.

(3) HSBC is notoriously stingy with CLs. On the plus side for you, you have the high HHI and I'm presuming your folks are homeowners, something about which HSBC has a particular fetish. You might get one $10k+ line with HSBC; I highly doubt you'll get two of them.

I'm not trying to discourage you, and your stats are such that your AOR will likely be highly successful. But (a) you need to be practical about which issuers you can do multiple apps with, and (b) if you lower your expectations, you'll be pleasantly surprised if you get around $150k in CLs, rather than being disappointed if it's less than $200k.

Due dates for credit cards will vary from Month-to-Month - so a due date of Tuesday in one month will be a different day of the week in another month. To make things easy (and get an extra 2 days from posting of credit card to actual debit from checking account) schedule all payments on the Friday before the due date (or on the due date, if the due date happens to be a Friday). This would only be done for accounts you carry a balance (paid-in-fulls would be done on the actual due date).

If you are using Emigrant Direct as the MMA Savings, then you can set the transfer date as Thursday - as they do transfer into other account on the date you requested.

If you are using FNBO Direct as the MMA Savings, then you may need to set the transfer start date as Monday (see site and posts about cashedge latency).

You should always try it out, since your situation of ACH routing may cause additional delay. Also, make sure of the availablity of funds on pushed into (usually same day as credited - but you need to verify it). The money for the payments should be in the checking account on Thursday so it can be pulled by ACH the next Monday.

Well I fired off the AoR yesterday. Did 34 applications total. Here is a summary:

Instant Approval: 13 ($64,000 total CL, mostly under 5k lines except a 20k citi professional and 12k principal bank)
Deferred: 18
Denied: 3

My household income (after talking to the folks) was actually a lot higher than what I originally thought and I reported it at 219k. However, after calling several companies about why I recieved 2k-5k credit lines, they did tell me my credit line was only based on cards that I was a primary user of, and not a AU of (which is only one card with a 5500cl). I have been calling and requesting soft pull CLI's with about a 40% success rate (I am being very persistant with this)

However, with the change in policy about AU later this year and in 2008, getting this credit and making the payments (while only yielding about a 50-100 dollar profit on the smaller lines) will drastically help my credit score when my AU accounts possibly drop off my credit report. I sure am thankful for the 20k line from Citi Professional and 12k from Principal Bank. With 18 decisions still pending, I am realistically hoping for a total credit line of at least 100k. Although I'll have over 20 cards to manage, the total profit should be quite reasonable (especially for a law school student who can only work seasonally). By the time class starts, everything should be pretty much set up and automated so I can concentrate on school. And hopefully when I graduate, I will have accumulated enough interest to pay for a year of tuition!

Also, FYI, Discover has a 0% FOR LIFE promo with "PLDA" code for the Discover More card. After the 12 month promo period, you just have to make 2 purchases a month to keep the 0% BT (keep in mind you can't pay back purchases until BT is paid, so make 1 dollar or so purchases). Discove did tell me they don't allow CL consolidation period. I was unfortunately only approved for a 3k credit line from discover and am doing everything I can to get it increased before the BT promo is over. Any ideas for this, please let me know!

I've revised my app list quite a bit from previous post. Below is my current status as of today. I have been told by HSBC GM flex they would do a higher CL for me if i sent them papers (which i will) and Barclays National Park said they would raise the CL for anyone with an HHI of 200+ (so more documents). While most of these limits are very paltry, this is my first AoR. It will be better for round two in 12 months. (I know I should have done more non-BT cards for consolidation, but from my calls and recent reading, many companies are not being very cooperative on CL consolidation and I figure there will be more BT promos available in one year) Here's the status:

Credit Card Status Page Decision CL
1 Discover More (0% Life Code) Approved 3000
2 FNBO Rewards Plat. Deferred
3 BoA Plat. Plus Mastercard Approved 5000
4 BoA Plat. Plus Visa Deferred
5 Citi AT&T Platinum Card Approved 2500
6 Citi Home Rebate Card Approved 1500
7 State Farm Good Neighbor Deferred
8 Barclays National Parks Approved 2000
9 Chase Sony Platnium Deferred
10 Chase VW Platnium Deferred
11 HSBC GM Flex Card Approved 2500
12 RBS Kroger 1.2.3 Approved 2000
13 GE Money Rewards Card Deferred
14 RBS Platinum Deferred
15 Principal Bank Low Rate Approved 12000
16 HSBC Platinum Mastercard Cash Back Denied
17 PNC Bank Personal Platinum Deferred
18 PNC Bank Business Platinum Deferred

Professional Cards
19 Citi Professional Approved 20,000

Business Cards
20 Advanta Business Rewards Approved
21 Citi Business Thank You Deferred
22 5/3 Business Rewards Deferred
23 Chase Platinum Business Visa Deferred
24 BoA Power Rewards Platinum Denied
25 Citi PremierPass Buisness Deferred
26 Chase GM Business Deferred

6 Month Cards
27 National City Visa Approved 5000
28 AMEX In: Chicago Deferred
29 AMEX In: NYC Approved 3200
30 WaMu ESPN Card Approved 2000
31 WaMu HSN Rewards Visa Denied
32 Barclays Emigrant Direct Deferred
33 Fifth Third Rewards Master Deferred

Non-BT Cards
34 Citi HHHonors Deferred

Thanks for the warning, and yes I've read about FBNO. I intend to do all of my BT's as fast as possible. After making sure I have a BT convenience check (not cash advance) I will use that, otherwise I'll try to sent BT to my debtit card into checking, and finally, i'll have to send the bt money to a card that has already been Bt'd and is negative as my final option. I'm still planning strategy a little for quickest way to get the money to FBNO savings, but I have some time before the mail comes. Thanks for the advice though, all is welcome.

decent results so far

Mike,
Looks like we both overdid it..........live and learn. At least we got something though.

MikeR397 said: Apparantly Principal Bank has the same service provider as FBNO, so now before I even got the card and could do a balance transfer, my second largest line was wiped off!
Wow, that's a major bummer. Next time you look at your credit report, please see if you see a closed Principal bank card, or if they just made it so the card "never happened".

I don't think they use the same servicer at FNBO. Principal bank uses Infibank, and FNBO uses First National (themselves).

I actually don't think I've ever heard of an approval being "undone" in such a fashion, that's pretty dramatic.

Little update...CLI on crack with AMEX put my total CL for 0% BT $ up to 116k! I am waiting to hear from 5 cards still (two from chase which for some reason they cannot tell me a status on the phone). The few others that were delayed were becuase of exessive inquiries, after I called, some got approved, some didn't.

Very pleased with the results so far. I went from a total primary card holder credit line of 5.5k to 121.5k in 2 weeks, so can't complain at all!

I've received all my cards and conducted the BT's to checking already (very pleased with the results for my first AoR with my very limited primary history). Here is the final summary. My total new 0% CL ended up being $127,100.

Discover More Approved 3000
BoA Plat. Plus Mastercard Approved 7000
Citi AT&T Platinum Card Approved 2500
Citi Home Rebate Card Approved 1500
Barclays National Parks Approved 2000
Chase VW Platnium Approved 7000
HSBC GM Flex Card Approved 3000
RBS Kroger 1.2.3 Approved 2000
GE Money Rewards Card Approved 7000
PNC Bank Personal Platinum Approved 5000

Citi Professional Approved 20,000

Advanta Business Rewards Approved 5000
Citi Business Thank You Approved 4000
Chase Platinum Business Visa Approved 5000
Chase GM Business Approved 10000

National City Visa Approved 5000
AMEX In: Chicago Approved 24900
AMEX In: NYC Approved 10200
WaMu ESPN Card Approved 2000
RBS Platinum Approved 1000