dcyahoo said:No fee BT until 12/01/07

From the terms and conditions:

Transaction fee for balance transfers: 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.

Good find OP

kingfrugal said:where does it say 10,000 points after first purchase?On Sunday Newpaper SmartSource flyer, you have to do your first purchase within 3 months of becoming a cardmember to get the bonus 10,000 TY points.

Offer expires 01/15/07


invisible said:Thanks OP. Do they apply (immediate, full) payment for the first purchase to the purchase itself or to the outstanding 0% APR BT first ?I do not know, usually credit card companies are not charities, they will charge whatever is possible to their favor, and I would assume payment goes to BT first. It would be a common practice for FWers to separate purchase from BT cards. If you do want to get both 10,000 TY points and no fee BT, I suggest that you signup online pay, do one purchase, immediately pay full amount. Then, Wait until your first statement available on line, make sure it has zero balance then you perform BT.

Good luck.

JoJoBoi said:Couldn't you make a 1 cent purchase to qualify for the TY points and just pay the interest on 1 cent while doing a BT?
Most have a minimum finance charge. I think for cit it is $0.50 per statement cycle. So you will end up paying about $6 (12 cycles) if you dont first payoff the purchase.

As dcyahoo pointed out, it is safe to wait for a statement after you have paid off the initial purchase. However, you should be o.k. as long as the payment has posted and your current balance is $0.00. YMMV.

burningrave101 said:uutxs said:JoJoBoi said:Couldn't you make a 1 cent purchase to qualify for the TY points and just pay the interest on 1 cent while doing a BT?
Most have a minimum finance charge. I think for cit it is $0.50 per statement cycle. So you will end up paying about $6 (12 cycles) if you dont first payoff the purchase.

As dcyahoo pointed out, it is safe to wait for a statement after you have paid off the initial purchase. However, you should be o.k. as long as the payment has posted and your current balance is $0.00. YMMV.

Yeah, just make a purchase and immediately go online and pay your current balance in full as soon as it shows up on the account and once the payment posts to your account you can call and do the balance transfer.

This is exactly how I've gotten around this obstacle.

burningrave101 said:uutxs said:JoJoBoi said:Couldn't you make a 1 cent purchase to qualify for the TY points and just pay the interest on 1 cent while doing a BT?
Most have a minimum finance charge. I think for cit it is $0.50 per statement cycle. So you will end up paying about $6 (12 cycles) if you dont first payoff the purchase.

As dcyahoo pointed out, it is safe to wait for a statement after you have paid off the initial purchase. However, you should be o.k. as long as the payment has posted and your current balance is $0.00. YMMV.

Yeah, just make a purchase and immediately go online and pay your current balance in full as soon as it shows up on the account and once the payment posts to your account you can call and do the balance transfer.


Something else that should be considered. Since this is a fixed-window BT offer, (e.g. No fee BT until 12/01/07), you need to make sure you are actually making money by delaying the BT. Take this example:

If you do a $10,000 BT and put it in a 5% interest savings account, you make ~$1.37/day. With the $6 in interest a purchase will cost you over the year, you are better off doing the BT immediately if the charge will take longer than ~4.38 days to post and pay off. Every day you waste beyond that 4 days costs you $1.37 in interest. On the upside, the CC company may look favorably upon you for paying interest every month (obviously this can't be proven). Take the $10K BT example and change it to $20K and you are losing money after ~2 days. $30K and you are losing money after ~1 day. This does not take into account income taxes on the 1099 interest, but you get the idea.

yanjun851 said:I guess 10,000 Points ($100) is the incentive to delay the BT

You get the 10,000 points as long as you make a purchase which you would do either way.

This might be answered in another thread, but what good are these citi AMEX cards....the bt ops with citi are valuable to me because you can consolidate/reallocate limits...looks like all of my cards are mastercard...I doubt you can move limits between the AMEX and mastercard cards...?

linedrivekid123 said:im new to credit cards but can i get this card, get a $10,000 BT to put in a 5% savings account and basically make $500 from the credit card company?

Pretty much (assuming you don't tie up too much of your overall available credit with this BT - even then you could do that if you don't mind your credit scores taking big hits).

Xeon852 said:yanjun851 said:Snyder81 said:yanjun851 said:I guess 10,000 Points ($100) is the incentive to delay the BT

You get the 10,000 points as long as you make a purchase which you would do either way.

Then you get financial charge on the purchase.
Yes, but the point is that 1 months lost interest is greater than the minimum finance charge ($6 over a year).

I see. Thanks