Credit Tips: High Balance Limit Transfers on Credit Cards

Written by carnold
Posted On: June 1, 2006

Author: pferd06
Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 2:15 pm
Post subject: High Limit Balance Transfer techniques?

Hoping some of you true credit gurus can weigh in here with some tips…

I have very high income, zero negative credit events, 10+ yrs history with Citi and Chase, but very high credit line utilization. I’ve made a practice of rolling 90%+ balances from card to card as transfer offers are received and I don’t ever really use the cards for purchases (the balances function as cheap financing for my investments). So far I have:

$25K from Citi
$25K from Juniper
$20K from Chase
$20K from BofA
$11K from USB
$9K from Discover
$5K from Amex
$3K from HSBC

The low limit cards are recent so I haven’t requested increases yet.

In order to borrow more and continue to attract balance transfer offers is it better to request increases from the higher limit or lower limit cards?

Is there a credit limit ceiling with any of these issuers I should avoid to continue getting balance transfer offers?

Are any issuers not named known to offer very high limits and balance transfers? Any standard cap on my total available credit from all issuers combined?

Any issuers known for consistently issuing balance transfer checks(makes my rolling process much easier)?

Thanks for suggestions

Author: quiznut1
Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 3:05 pm
Post subject: Re: High Limit Balance Transfer techniques?

Hmm…it’s hard to predict what goes into the pre-approval process for any balance transfer offer you receive. There are a lot of criteria that the credit card companies look at when selecting who to give the offer to. There are a couple cards that have good balance transfer offers and are available for everyone pending approval of course.

Citi Platinum Select Mastercard, 0% APR on purchases and balance transfers for 12 months, no balance transfer fee for initial transfers. The only exception is you can’t transfer your balance from another Citi card unto this one.

Citi Driver’s Edge Platinum Select, same as above.

Also the Discover Miles card, same offer as above.

I do have a question for you though, are you able to pay off all these debts right away? A good thing to do with a 0% offer on balance transfers is to pay the minimum payment from month to month, and hold all your funds in a high yield savings account or CD earning interest (Emigrant Direct is 4.5% right now for MM Savings). On the last month of the 0% balance transfer offer, pay the card down as much as you can before transfering it to another card, or if you decide to keep it on there, paying it down will of course accrue a lot less interest.

I don’t know if this helps any, but this is the best I can give you.

Author: rapjunkie
Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 10:08 pm
Post subject: High Balance Limit Transfers on Credit Cards

Pferd06,

Just out of curiosity, what do you do for a living? I’m always curious what fields people are in that have very high incomes… you know… like when you see a guy driving in a Ferrari or SL65 AMG, and just wonder what he does for a living.

Author: fire3000
Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 2:00 pm
Post subject: High Balance Limit Transfers on Credit Cards

I play the BT game also. I currently have over $120,000 of low rate credit card debt that is invested in liquid safe investments such as short term bank CDs. This is nearly twice my salary as a federal employee for the Navy. My secret to obtaining high credit card limits is to obtain at least one card from all of the major issurers, take advantage of their balance transfer offers even if the rate is only slightly less that what you are now paying or what the going CD rate is, do not be afraid to BT up to 90% of your available credit, paying a little more than the minimum payment to show the creditors that you can easily handle the payments, and paying off the cards in a lump sum before the end of the low rate periods. I frequently get an instant credit line increase when I call the customer reps after I receive a balance transfer offer and I have another card that has a balance higher than the limit on the card with the offer. I achieved a limit of $75,000 on my MBNA card by asking them to combine limits on three cards and close two. HSBC does not like people like me who carry hefty balances and they closed my unused card with only a $5,000 limit, so do not be surprised if they close yours too.