My Second AOR - Rolling

Unfortunately, I have concerns regarding how much new credit you are going to get with your utilization so high with more than one current issuer.

Selfishly, I'd like to see what happens when you do apply for more credit....

Good luck!

Yeah I noticed that too, balances on 5 cards? I would think you should have 1-2 tops. How long are you planning to carry those balances? Do you have the cash to cover them?

StallionKing said: Thanks for your feedback!

I'm not sure why my column (c) tags don't come out right, but it looks better now since I can use more than one space character.

I've added the US Bank PBR card to my list.

I am wondering about the order of my applications. Should I use:
Bureau pull information to figure out the order
Apply by order of preference
Apply to cards that are harder to get first
Use a mix of the above?
Is it possible to know which cards are easier or harder to get?I'm happy to help and provide feedback.

That said, I am more eager to do so if you do little bit more homework 1st. Thus far, I can see a total of 5 posts to the community and they appear to be questions with limited citations documenting your efforts to answer the original questions on your own.

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/813911
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/900437/m13411299/#m13411...

An hypothetical example of a better post might be like this:

I have read here and here about how to close a WAMU savings account but didn't find a specific answer to a dilemma I'm having. Rather than posting in the two aforementioned threads, I am starting a new on because my question is specific to a POD (Payable On Death) account.

Thanks in advance

A final option is to simply ask your question here in the ask anything thread

edit: removed numbering, line indents and bullets as they look terrible when quoting others

cashmonkey said: StallionKing said: After my A0R, I will try to increase the credit limits of existing cards that require hard pulls.You should be aware that in this environment, your whole A0R may backfire
I agree. This AOR is too ambitious IMO given his mediocre credit profile (low credit lines, relatively high utilization, etc) and the current credit environment. My husband recently applied for the Citi Forward card and got a CL that is <0.4% of his income even though he has only one large balance on his credit report (admittedly, it's from Citi). StallionKing already has balances at Citi and BofA, so I seriously doubt they are going to extend much more credit.

StallionKing said: I am pretty much using credit cards to my advantage as free loans rather than making money off of the offers.

OK. You spend more than you make. That's a bad habit you need to break, if possible.

StallionKing said: Unfortunately I don't have the cash to cover these balances now, and will transfer them to the new cards I receive.

These balances are the biggest thing hurting my credit score, which I have tried to maximize by having <50% utilization on all cards.

Dude, the credit bubble popped months ago.... it's way too late to AOR your way out of the hole by playing the balance transfer game. Banks are not stupid like they were last year. Your existing creditors will CLD and close your accounts when they see all those apps.

Another poster mentioned CU and small banks. That requires research because some of them are quite skittish too. Don't assume CU = easy credit.

Forget the AOR game. You need to save up and actually pay down the debt instead. Stop worrying about your FICO score so much. Your FICO isn't killing you - it's the debt itself. Opt out of rate changes and eat the account closure, because APR increases will make it harder to pay down the debt. Find a way to save more than you spend and pay down the debt.

My fakos are about the same as yours with 200K in AOR money showing on my report. I would wait and pay off your balances. I know that I wouldn't apply for anything with my current score.

I have to echo the others' comments here. I'll add that I've seen in other recent AOR threads that applying for multiple Citi Cards simultaneously seems not to work. After you do the first one, all of the other ones are declined with the reason that Citi is already processing an application.

I would say your scores are fairly low and you have balances on the cards.
Most of your cards are not going to be instantly approved but will be deferred. (Speaking from my AOR 5-6 months ago...My previous utilization was less then 10% and my scores were 770+.
I compiled a huge list of cards, ultimately getting rid of any card with a non capped 3%. My reasoning was that the profit from those cards would not be worth the extra effort. Profit from a card = (Interest rate recevied - Bt fee ) * (1 - your marginal tax rate.)
I wasn't willing to keep track of 2 rewards accounts with all of the purchases and felt that my chance at an error would have been too great.
Didn't do anything with AMEX. I wasn't willing to take a miles card, and didn't find a good bt card. Good luck with them. They seem to be agressively CLD everyone.
Juniper was bad to me. I had an Emigrant Direct card for a good 4 years before. Then approved me for an Ifly card with a limit of 2.5K and refused to consolidate with the Emigrant card. The BT fee on the I fly card wouldn't have been worth it, so I didn't use it, Juniper closed the card without telling me, and only two weeks later did I receive a letter. Glad I didn't use it in that time.
Us Bank denied my Linux card app.
Citi and Boa were good to me but BoA took my existing credit line and moved it to the new card so I could open it. (Citi also reversed a late fee for me)
State farm was decent. ( And also had no problem reversing a late fee)

My question is, what will you do with the money you get?
Capped BT fees really shine when you get a large CL, which you may not because of your low CS and higher balances.

solarUS said: StallionKing - at this point you need to BUILD credit, not use it. your scores arent going to get you great limits. HOWEVER, i would definitely apply for SOMETHING, if for no other reason than to decrease your overall util%, because it is high. if i was in your spot, i would absolutely wait until i got my util below 10%, which should help your score, then apply.

if you insist on AORing, i would recommend about 5 apps max, and i wouldnt bother with any Biz cards, as they dont show on your CRAs (except Discover) and you need them to...also, you dont appear to care about interest rate arbitrage, so making money off them isnt a priority. I dont think you will get the AM3X Blue card. Anyway, i recommend these:

BofA NEA (mainly because the $30 BT cap is permanent)
USBank Linux/Irish
Chase Disney
Juniper Ifly
Citi...one of the two. sorry you missed the ADA card.

that'll be 3 TU pulls and 2 EQ or EX.I agree. It's now dated, but I did something similar a year ago here.

win333 said: Stallion king, your going about this all wrong like the others have said. But I'll offer you the solution I used when I had 100K+ in balances and needed to do my AOR.

each situation is different so you'll need to use your imagination for your situation.

You only need to have your statement balance print a $0 balance, thats whats reported on your credit reports.

I use to save any BT checks that I would get so i'd be ready when the time came.

Statement prints a $0 balance, then BT to that account (you have 30 days to get everything done.)
Rinse and repeat until your credit report has $0 balances reported.
(you can get your due dates (statement print dates ) changed to work best for you.

But instead of doing a full blown AOR, A 10K biz card would do you alot more good than anything else you could do. Then you could BT all your debt to the biz card and then try to AOR.

Since JUNY and AMEX are a pain, I would suggest trying to get the Bank atlantic biz card or a AMEX biz card to hide your debt on.

I've laid out a very large plan here with very few words, try to read between the lines and really understand what i'm saying.

Your debt doesn't need to be paid off, just reported as paid off. Just move it until it reports. It will cost you a little at 1st, but now that you know about fatwallet you'll learn to use your money right.

PS whoever you hide the debt with you won't really be able to do new apps with, so make sure you get all you can from that issuer.

PPS like others said, this year is way different for AORs than previous years.

Excellent points.

I would recommend apply for a credit card or gradually build a few credit cards that allow you do to billpay to pay off your other credit cards. I then use HELOC to complement the circle of life to transfer the so-called BT money into my HELOC and transfer my HELOC credit line into my checking account to pay off my debt temporily... The cards I would recommend would be Fidelity FIA cards or Schwab Visa card. They are excellent cards to "hide" your BT money if you read through win333's reply word by word one more time. We have done new AOR by hiding existing AOR using this strategy. Hope this helps.

Thank you everyone for the responses. Today was supposed to be the big A0R day, and I do need to get new credit cards with 0% offers, but I am going to defer the A0R slightly until I figure out my strategy.

It looks like these are my 3 main options:

1. Do about 5 apps to my favorite cards, and only if they keep getting approved apply for some more. This is the fastest, ready to go option.
   
2. BT money from my friend’s credit cards to ‘hide’ the current debt, do the A0R, and then return the money with 0% BT checks.
   
3. Apply for a Biz card with a $10k+ limit and hide my debt there before doing the A0R.
   

Option 3 seems like a good idea too, but it is also the slowest one that will take like 2 months before I can do an A0R. Other issues include possibility of a low CL on the Biz card as they will look at my current credit profile, and there will be a new inquiry on my credit report when I do the actual A0R.

Option 1 is pretty much the original plan.

I found a link to the Citi ADA card in this thread here, so I may include it too.

I do have an AM'EX question: What is the difference between actual Am'Ex cards like Blue, and the ones that are part of another bank like the BofA NEA AM'EX card in my list?

Debt management:
My skills in this department have gone way up since I received my first Wells Fargo credit card, subsequent credit cards and website like FWF and mint.com.

I have made a spreadsheet keeping track of my credit card payments and how soon I can expect to pay off the debts by looking at my cash income vs. expenses.

What I am going to do with the 0% BT money is use it to keep the debt I already have interest free while I work on repayment. If I get really high limits then maybe I’ll consider using a rewards checking account.

Nevertheless, you guys are awesome and have given me some great ideas. Thanks again!

StallionKing said: BT money from my friend’s credit cards to ‘hide’ the current debt, do the A0R, and then return the money with 0% BT checks.

Nightmare scenario:

1) Your buddy pays your balance.
2) The creditor CLD you immediately when the payment posts or the BT check you use to pay back your buddy bounces when the creditor changes his mind.
3) The AOR is unsuccesful.
4) Your friend still wants his money back but you're stuck with CLD left and right.

This isn't likely since your utilization is around 50% on the worst lines, but you never know.

OP - Did you execute the AOR ? What is the outcome ?

OP, any updates?