Credit Tips: How Many Credit Card Balance Transfers Can Be Done

Posted On: March 1, 2006

Author: Debi
Posted: Mon Jun 28, 2004 12:08 pm
Post subject: How Many Credit Card Balance Transfers Can Be Done

9/21/2002 4:07 pm CDT

I have several questions but I’ll just ask one for now. I’ve never had much credit card debt, but this fall one of my children got married and another one went off to Emory University. The two events caused me to accrue about $5.000 in debt. I have always had excellent credit and the Capitol One card that carries the $5,000 debt has a rate of 9.9 %. I am constantly inundated with offers for new cards. The 0% intro fee and no balance transfer options seem to make moving my debt a worthwhile endeavor. However, I have not found a debt calculator that will help me determine which offer is the best deal. I have an offer for an American Express card with a 0% intro for 6 months with a fixed 7.99 for the life of the balance. It has no transaction fee and 5% cash back. The rate moves to 9.74% for new purchases after the 6 months intro is up. The other is for a GM card with a 0% APR through July of 2003 with no balance transfer fee and 0% interest on new purchases through July of 2003. The rate moves to a variable 9.99 after that. There is a 5% GM reward on purchases that has to be used towards the purchase of a GM vehicle. I doubt I would use that and I doubt I will be making many other charge card purchases. I hate having charge card debt but it was either that or take out a loan for college expenses. I figured this was the lesser of two evils. We are trying to pay for our daughter’s colleges expenses on a monthly payment plan to avoid long term debt. To all of you reading this, if you have children who will be attending college, START SAVING NOW! We foolishly thought if our daughter was smart enough she could obtain enough scholarship to pay her way. She had a 1400 SAT, maintained a GPA over 4.0, was very active in school. We found the private schools are only willing to give grant money up to your EFC (Expected Family Constribution, a term I never knew but now have nightmares about) Our EFC was 15,000. It’s ridiculous! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to write a missive. Hope someone can give me a formula to figure out the best deal or maybe just let me know which is the best deal. Thanks a million.

Author: Ira
Posted: Mon Jun 28, 2004 12:09 pm
Post subject: How Many Credit Card Balance Transfers Can Be Done

9/25/2002 11:54 pm CDT

If your credit is good - and yours seems to be - you can switch credit cards almost as often as you switch shoes. Concentrate on the introductory rates, because they are all that matter. There’s always another 0% or 2.9% offer out there. You can transfer balances from one card to another to another, constantly using another intro rate. Therefore the answer to your question about the best offer would be the card that has the 0% offer for the longest period of time.