Chase Ups The Ante with A 15 Month Interest-Free Period on Balance Transfers

Chase

For some time now, Discover has been offering some of the longest interest-free periods on their balance transfer offers for new credit card accounts. But now it looks like the good folks at Chase are making a bid to break away from the pack by offering 0% on transferred balances for up to 15 months with the Chase Platinum card. A bold move on the part of Chase--no doubt--as the U.S. Prime Rate will probably increase by another 0.25 percentage points next month, and higher interest rates have a tendency to dampen the overall credit market.

There is a bit of a catch related to the 15 month interest-free period on balance transfers for the Chase Platinum card: you have to have a good credit rating in order to qualify for the "Elite" or "Premium" pricing levels, as only those who qualify for Elite or Premium pricing will be able to take advantage of the 15 month interest-free term on balance transfers. If you are still working on building or repairing your credit, then you'll probably have to settle for "Standard" pricing, which would get you a 0% APR on transferred balances for 3 months.

The other major credit card companies are still offering some highly attractive interest-free periods right now. Currently, both Discover and Citibank have many credit cards with 12 month, 0% balance transfer offers associated with them, and some of these credit cards come with excellent rewards programs to boot.

It's been a while since I've seen 18 month interest-free periods on balance transfer offers from the major credit card companies and banks; maybe the latest move by Chase will result in a return of the 18 month offers, or maybe even 24 month offers? Keep your fingers crossed!


The Latest Balance Transfer Offers Related to Credit Card Accounts I Already Have Open
Regarding the latest snail mail balance transfer solicitations that I've received--the ones associated with the credit card accounts I already have open--I don't have anything exciting to report. In fact, the offers appear to be somewhat less favorable, from a consumer point of view.

• Providian (which is now Washington Mutual) offered me 1.99% APR on balance transfers until October, 2006. Not bad, but the low APR period is too short for my tastes. Pass!



• BJ's (which is a Chase co-branded credit card) presented me with an offer of:
  
  

  0.99% fixed APR until October 1, 2006
  
  or
  
  6.99% fixed APR until the transferred balance is paid off.

And the game continues.

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Consolidating My Debt While Avoiding Interest Charges: Zero Balance On All but Two of My Credit Cards

I recently transferred a few balances in order to consolidate my credit card debt and take advantage of some great lower interest balance transfer deals. Once again, I used a "2.99% until the transferred balance is paid in full" promotional offer that was presented to me by the folks who manage my Citibank Dividend Platinum Select® Card, simply because it was the best deal I could find at the time (Discover is still sending me offers of 0% APR on transferred balances, with the interest-free period recently extended until June 2007--which is a fantastic offer--but I'm still not sure about using Discover, and I really shouldn't be opening a new credit card account. I think I have too many as it is!)

Within a couple of weeks, I will have a zero balance on all my credit card accounts save two, which makes me happy: it means that I have far fewer accounts to monitor, thus reducing the number of did-I-forget-to-make-a-payment-on-one-of-my-credit-cards-this-month? panic attacks, I hope. These days, if you're late on a payment, or skip a payment, you not only get in trouble with the credit card account in question, but all your other creditors can raise your APR's as high as 29% (not all do, but they can); they may also nullify any promotional APR's related to any balance transfer deals you've signed up for, which for me would translate to a nightmarish escalation of debt. It's called Universal Default, and it's perfectly legal.

Stay tuned for more on my adventures with credit card balance transfers!

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Latest Balance Transfer Offers from BJ's MasterCard (Chase)

Got a pretty good offer in the mail on Friday from BJ's MasterCard®; this was not an offer to open a new account, as I already have a BJ's MasterCard in my wallet (BJ's is a membership-based, wholesale warehouse "club" a la Costco; the BJ's MasterCard is co-branded with Chase Bank USA [a.k.a. JP Morgan Chase].) The letter began:

"We want to be your number one credit card. We noticed that you recently made a large payment to your BJ's MasterCard® account [via a balance transfer] and want to make sure we're not losing your business. That's why we want to remind you again of these low-rate reasons to stay--it's our way of showing you that your business is important to us."

OK, so far I'm liking the tone of this letter. The letter goes on:

"You can choose which offer is best for you:

• 0% fixed annual percentage rate (APR) for 6 billing cycles with check number [check #1] and [check #2].
• 3.99% fixed APR until the balance is paid off with check number [check #3], [check #4] and [check #5]

Use your low-APR checks to save with your BJ's MasterCard account, to deposit for extra cash, or consolidate higher-interest balances. Write them for any amount up to the unused portion of your available credit--and enjoy the money-saving result."

Not bad. The 0% for 6 months offer is too short for my tastes, but the "3.99% until the transferred balance is paid off" offer is quite appealing and I may use it to pay off my Bank of America Visa card which has a balance of about $3,500 right now.

If I do take advantage of the 3.99% offer, I won't be able to use my BJ's credit card until the transferred balance is paid in full; not because of a restriction associated with the balance transfer offer--no, it's because if I were to make any purchases on the card, those purchases would be subject to high interest charges, and I would have to continue to pay the higher monthly finance charges until the account balance is reduced to zero. Making purchases on a credit card to which you've transferred a balance is one of the ways that the credit card companies "get you" with these deals. It's not devious or underhanded, it simply punishes those who don't have the discipline to either a) read the terms and conditions of the balance transfer offer completely, or b) stop using the credit card to which a balance has been transferred. Make a purchase on a card to which you've transferred a balance, and most banks / credit card companies will apply any and all monthly installment payments to the lower-interest, transferred balance(s) first, leaving all other purchases and cash advances subject to the card's standard (and sometimes higher than standard!) annual percentage rate, and they'll keep doing this until the transferred balance is paid in full.

My dilemma is this: my BJ's MasterCard is currently the only credit card I'm using for temporary financing of the usual odds and ends of life. This is because all my other credit cards are either tied up in balance transfer deals or have a standard APR that is relatively high (for me, relatively high means anything higher than 9.99% APR.) I could just transfer my Bank of America Visa card balance using the above deal, then start using my Bank of America card for everyday financing, but then I would lose all the great rewards benefits that are built into the BJ's card.

No big deal, really. I'm probably going to transfer my Bank of America Visa balance and start using that card, because even though the BJ's card rewards are great, they require one to spend quite a bit in order to take maximum advantage of the rewards, and I don't plan on making any major purchases any time soon.

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for the latest on my adventures in the world of credit card balance transfers.

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Latest Citibank Offer: 2.99% APR Until Transferred Balances Are Paid In Full!

Sometimes, this credit card balance transfer game can get very, very frustrating.

Today, I received balance transfer offer in the mail from Citibank: 2.99% APR until transferred balances are paid in full! A fantastic offer, considering the fact that the current U.S. prime rate is 7.25%, and will probably be going up next week. But I don't think I'll be able to take advantage of this offer, darn it (read on for the reason why.)

In the letter I received today, Citibank refers to itself as a "responsible lender," and to be perfectly honest I agree with that. The last time I took advantage of a Citibank balance transfer offer, the folks @ Citibank were gracious enough to raise my credit limit by a considerable amount, so that even when the transferred balance was added to my current account balance, the resulting balance was still less than half my credit limit, which looks great on a credit report (creditors don't like to see an account that's maxed out or close to being maxed out.)

OK, now for the bad news: I recently transferred a considerable amount to the very same credit card account that is associated with the above balance transfer offer. The deal was very similar to the above, except that the offered APR was 3.99% until the transferred balance is paid off. So now that I've transferred all the balances I wanted to transfer with the original 3.99% offer, I am now faced with a new offer that has an APR that is 1 percentage point lower.

Is the 1 percentage point a big deal? Sure it is! When you are dealing with many thousands of dollars, a single percentage point can translate to hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars in savings in the long term, no doubt!

So I guess I have 2 options:

1. Call Citibank and see if they'll drop the APR on the balance I transferred from 3.99% to 2.99% (or maybe I should try for 1.99%! The worst that can happen is they'll say "no.")
   
2. Transfers my current Citibank balance away from Citibank, wait a few weeks, then transfer it back with the superior 2.99% balance transfer offer.

Makes sense for me to try the phone call first, but I am not very optimistic about option 1's chances. Wish me luck!

Please feel free to post comments about your own credit card balance transfer triumphs, pitfalls, anecdotes, etc. Your comments are welcome and appreciated!

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