Citi BT update:

Today, the Citi bt landed in my BOA checking. On the very same day, the citi web site has balance updated to reflect the posted BT transaction. I also tried clicking on the "see bt offers" link, for research purposes, to see if the 0% no fee offer is still there. It went away! (So, the terms is had were definitely not "rolling bt compatible".)

I scheduled a $10k prepayment of wife's student loan, and will deposit today the remainder of the BT into my Wa Mu 4.0% APY savings. (Getting an extra $10 interest than waiting until monday.)

New Investment Option: Local CU offering 6.01% APY checking (some restrictions)

I also was doing some credit union searching, and happened upon a local one (field of membership = Washington state only) offering a pretty nice, 6.01%APY "up to 40k balance" (2.0% APY above $40k), if online usage and 12 debit transactions are performed each month (No direct deposit requirement.) That is not bad at all!

Pros: $40k @ 6% APY = $200 interest per month. Unlike CD, the funds stay liquid. Unlike savings accounts, no 6 transaction limit. I can even write checks, so less savings-checking "balance juggling." Might be usable for rolling my BOA BTs (although wouldn't be able to roll the whole $50k credit line all the way down to 0%, unless I'm OK with it earning only 2% APY.)

Downsides & Risks: As happened with SBoT and other similar accounts, rates could drop. (However the program is new enough, I am hopeful it will stay put for a while.) There is no guarantee the rate will be maintained, but I can hope. I need to figure out a way to time-efficiently perform 12 debit transactions each month (or 24 transactions, if my wife also opened an account.) Not sure how I'll make deposits (Deposit convenience checks at some local ATM? Have BOA ACH the BT directly into the account each time?)

In lieu of funding the countrywide 4.5%APY 5-mo CD, I think I'll give this a try. If I am happy enough with it, I could have my wife up for her own account so we'd have between us up to $80k of 6% earning capability.

dvm395 - thanks for the tip on Am Ex CLI; I've been suspecting it'll probably be denied, but your info is just what I needed to hear to realize it's unlikely. Additionally, 48 hrs+ have passed since my online crack CLI request (with the 7-10 day response), and I've seen no credit line change online, no calls, no nothing... not even a soft EX pull.

update: I called a CSR and requested BT checks. He said three would arrive in (you guessed it!) 7-10 days. If I realized earlier that requesting these checks be delivered didn't actually cause a pending BT transaction, I'd have done it 2 days ago.

Once the BT check arrives, I'll make sure it gets used to pay off another lender so I don't get a cash advance hit.

Would I be correct to assume Am Ex only reports statement closing account balances to CRAs? (I'd like to roll 99% - 100% utilization for the first cycle that it doesn't report.)

update: BOA NEA Am Ex and Am Ex Rewards Plus Gold cards arrived, and are now activated.

Dealing with Chase activation chimps conditioned me to dread speaking with all other activation CSRs. So for my Am Ex cards, I opted for online activation (They are the only isser I am aware of who offer this option.)

With BOA I had to call to activate, but was actually quite pleasantly surprised by a nice activation experience! I think they've got some of the consistently best CSRs there. I love how you can speak with their credit analysts too.

Am Ex CSRs I am still trying to put my finger on... some of them are impressive, but nearly all of them exude this quality of trying too hard to suck up. I guess being new with them I am still trying to figure them out.

Citi CSRs seem like can vary a lot, from incompetent to excellent.

Elleve, in my opinion, a CSR that is likely compensated by soliciting your application only serves as justification or rationalization that the business application is legitimate. The CSR's action does not somehow make your business application legitimate. Now I do agree that most of these secondary market activities (eBay, A0Rs, etc.) should count as business activities. However, I just want to point out that the action you suggest does not, in my view, provide any more legitimacy for someone questioning this issue.

Update:
As predicted, the inquiries were relatively painless, but the new accounts reporting are hurting the FAKOs, actually quite substantially. (Much more than I would have predicted!)

With three new accounts showing on all three bureaus (so 4 more new accounts plus balances still set to show later), the FAKOs sit at:
759 TU / 778 EX / 713 EQ

That is down 14, 24, and a whopping 63 points (on EQ) down compared to where they sat before the micro-rama:
773 TU / 802 EX / 776 EQ

As soon as my wife's aged CapOne 0% BT expires, I think I'll have her add me back on as AU to bump up the average age a bit. (That won't be until a couple months, but may give a helpful score boost.)

I am analyzing a few BT plans, ranging from probably the least conservative I might consider, to the most aggressive. It can be helpful to see how profit varies with risk and the different "options".

I am most concerned with letting combined debt > 40% of HHI report. I know there is evidence some issuers use this as a trigger point for A/A. However, there is quite some extra profit to be made so it might be worth taking a little bit extra of risk of A/A. In even my most aggressive borrowing option, overall utilization will only reach a modest 34%, so that won't be an issue at all. What I am potentially worried about is letting my combined reported unsecured revolving debt exceed 40% HHI. (My most conservative borrowing scenario has it at 40% HHI, and in my most aggressive it rises to mid 40%'s HHI.)

I am playing with a few options:
* utilizing more heavily 12-month 0% debt options (Chase, Citi) rather than 6-month 0% debt (Am Ex IN:LA) or alternately, triggering an additional BT on Chase ($99 bt fee) when Am Ex 6-mo BT is paid off.
* paying off the discover Motiva 2.2k balance (to allow borrowing more debt at 0% for same total reported borrowed.)
* how to distribute the utilization across the accounts (biased to any accounts, or more evenly.)

I think my goals are changing from maintaining "refinance mortgage at any moment" credit scores, into more of a "take more BT profit while keeping a comfortable risk of A/A." So, I am updating my plans to better reflect my new goals.

Edit:
Reallocation also went smoothly with BOA, bumping up my NEA Visa's CL to just a few hundred shy of $50k.

Update:

All cards are in now, except the BOA "Signature" upgrade, which is several days past when they said it would arrive. Seems to be "missing in action." I wonder if it's just some unexpected processing delay, or whether someone actually declined me for the upgrade. Either way I don't really care (my combined credit limits are already nearly 1.5x HHI, so I don't need to extend them further, just for the sake of extending them.) I wasted no time waiting for BOA, and rolled a BT after statement closing, taking my utilization from 0% all the way to 100% (hitting a new "High Balance" of almost $50k.)

New accounts reporting: I have already reported here that Citi and BOA reported their new account relatively quickly after approval. As of today, all the rest of the issuers I applied with (Chase, Am Ex, Cap One) have still not yet reported new accounts, and may be waiting until either the first statement date gets reached, or perhaps the end of the month. I'll know soon.

Another interesting difference I noticed between issuers, is that Cap One and Chase responded very quickly to request to change the statement date (basically, effecting the change immediately.) The other issuers (BOA, Citi, Am Ex) seem to be waiting until the previously scheduled statement date gets reached first, before changing the statement date for the following cycle.

Am Ex CLI update: indeed the Am Ex CLI response letter arrived and it gave the "account needs to be opened for 30 days or 3 months until last CLI" rejection. I am still waiting for their BT check in the mail. This is also the only BT I have yet to complete.

Citi Associated update: The card just arrived last night.

I discovered one oddity about this card: citi's online system doesn't seem to allow adding the associated card into to an existing "www.accountonline.com" login profile. It directs you to "associatedcreditcard.accountonline.com" (seemingly, to crease a brand new profile to access the associated card?) I am wondering if this is necessary; it would be nice to be able to manage the associated card from my main citi profile.

-edit-
I also just put in a request with a Citi CSR to reallocate 7k from Citi Associated to my Home Rebate. After putting me on hold for a few minutes, she returned claiming she had submitted the request and told me to check back to see if it has processed in 24-48 hrs.

Citi Reallocation update:
I had to go to great lengths and use the retention department to get it done, but I finally got credit line moved from Citi Associated card to Citi Home Rebate. I moved over $7k, leaving behind $500 on the associated card, building a $49k home rebate card, which dropped the BT utilization from 99% to 85%. (At the time of reallocation, the destination card didn't have a "live" 0% BT offer on it.) I still had to wait a day for the retention supervisor to process the request, but I did verify the new credit line is now showing up in online banking. (Venturion was right about my first reallocation attempt through front line CSRs getting shot down - reportedly due to "card incompatibility.")

Other updates:
* Am Ex IN:LA convenience checks arrived (And I'm debating whether to pull the BT trigger now, or wait for about one week to first try for a 30 day CLI.)

* Both new Chase accounts got reported to the CRAs following their statement closings (one with $18.8k BT balance, and about 55% utilization.) TU FAKO dropped by the usual 10 point figure. EQ dropped slightly (~2-3 pts.)

* EX actually increased, perhaps due to aging of account or inquiries (a few of each just reached the 12 month level, with the current month changing to March).

* Received first interest payments from my 6% APY rewards checking accounts.

* some bizarre pre-approval behavior coming into my mailbox: Wa Mu solicited me with no less than THREE identical credit card pre-approved offers all on the same day, in indentically-packaged envelopes. Usually I see them spaced out at least by a week. (The offer was their usual "0% on purchases for xx months when you BT now!" Cap One also sent me out another "up to $30k credit line" pre-approved offer, identical in every way to the one they sent previously and that I applied and was approved for two weeks ago. Citi sent me a professional pre-approved, with their usual 0% 12 months no BT fee and 3% rewards in some categories (same offer as available to general public.) My wife now has no new accounts in 12 month period, and even with some high utilization reporting (> 50% overall, < 89% individual) is getting some pretty attractived pre-approved's. Two example from Chase: 0% 15-month no BT fee "national geographic" or "platinum" (we've been getting tons of these platinum pre-approveds, but this is the longest no-fee BT term seen on them I have yet seen.)

I thought about Wa Mu earlier, but ruled them out because the 0% APR was only for purchases. It seems Wa Mu has dried up the 0% on BT offers with capped BT fees that they used to have. AFAIK, Wa Mu also doesn't allow reallocation or consolidation, so it's not even clear if I did get a $30k credit line from them, that I would profit from utilizing it any point in the future.

Even if I executed my most aggressive BT utilization plan, my overall utilization would still be just under 35%, so seems like I would get little benefit from further increasing my combined credit limits just for the sake of reducing overall utilization.

The AMX 0% promo rate turns into a pumpkin fairly soon after you get it. Make sure it doesn't expire on you before you do the BT.

Hmm you're doing the reward checking thing? I'm just worried I'd botch it up so I went with the Provident 4.5% savings.
Still worried about rate cuts though since all the major banks cut rates recently, so who knows what'll happen.

Wish I got a sweet offer like that Chase freedom offer you got. Oh well, there's always next year

I ended up getting 9K from Citi so far. Might hold onto it like you said since it's good for 12 months (still haven't heard back from my business app yet, but it looks like they pulled TU for both apps, so I hope it won't be a problem).