Comments on: Introductory Credit Card Offers As Profit: Risks and Rewards

By: passive income residual

passive income residual — Wed, 14 May 2008 08:30:04 +0000

The more I think about it, with so many things going on, I’m glad I quit using credit cards. It seems I end up spending more time trying to save money and make sure the bill is right, than I do trying to make money. Debit cards work great.

By: WealthBoy

WealthBoy — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 01:01:07 +0000

@CPA1298
I couldn’t have said it any better myself. I was going to mention avoiding using a cash advance and just depositing a balance transfer check right into your high-yield account, as well as watching out for the transfer fees.

On a different note… I did this with my Bank of America credit card with no transfer fees. However, my credit score did drop from around 800 to around 720. I suspect it was probably a combination of maxing out the card as well as increasing my overall revolving debt utilization. This was about two years ago and I still haven’t gotten back to 800, but I’m up to about 760 now. I think the combination of time and a few credit line increases has helped to advance my score.

By: raymond

raymond — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 02:17:54 +0000

as the app-o-rama website says it is riskless. then when i tried it they proved it correct. then i suggest you try it to.

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 02:36:05 +0000

Actually a cash advance is not recommended as many of the offers don’t offer a break on APR or fees. A balance transfer as you mentioned is a better deal, with Citi it is a menu item in their control panel to get it done.

Research app-o-rama and you’ll find out other creative ways of getting balance transfer money out of other companies.

Good day.

By: Tyler Corlen

Tyler Corlen — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:07:14 +0000

Although many PF bloggers are against this practice, I think it’s a great idea if you stay on top of your records and you’re not in the market for a loan in the short term (because your credit score does take a hit).

By: Tyler Corlen

Tyler Corlen — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:05:24 +0000

I think the method is pretty straightforward if you keep good records. I signed up for paperless statements for my cards and I’ve literally made thousands per year. The negative is the credit rating which does take a hit. The key is to time it so that you don’t plan on getting any laons while this is going on.

By: CPA1298

CPA1298 — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 00:08:24 +0000

Be very careful taking cash advances; typically you will get charged a fee of 5% or so, which will more than eat up your pre-tax interest earnings. Get a no-fee balance transfer check (as Citi does), or have them direct deposit the money in your checking (as Chase does), or have the 0% card transfer the balance to a card without a balance; the card will have a negative balance and they will cut you a check to bring it up to zero.

It’s really not worth it for a $3k balance; you need to be at least in the $10k plus range to make it worth the hassel and credit score damage.

Again – DO NOT take a cash advance. Another reason – you will incur finance charges on the card, even just for a couple days it will sting, because it will be at 30%. There is no grace period for cash advances.

Trust me, I’ve had over $40k in 0% balances at once.

By: Quang

Quang — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 02:00:28 +0000

This remains me of the Credit Building Strategy I got at this free seminar, which focuses on building your credit score instead of making money. It involves taking out a $1,000 secured checkbook loan from a bank, going to a different bank, open up a checking account, and get another $1,000 secured checkbook loan… do that 10 times

at the 10th bank use that to pay off the first bank’s loan… keep doing that and they said in a year you’d have a Monster credit score (successfully paid off $10,000 of credit early)

I’m digging this creditcard strat- could it be too easy of $$ ?

By: Sun

Sun — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 03:14:58 +0000

Yes, if you have a Citi card, balance transfer is a snap. Just transfer whatever amount you want to a Citi card whether it carries a balance or not. After the money is deposited, go to your Citi website and request a refund. The whole process takes about two weeks and you don’t have to speak to anybody.

By: MoneyFwd

MoneyFwd — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 20:17:37 +0000

This is an interesting variation on what I’ve read in a lot of other blogs. It would probably be the only way if the Credit Card company won’t cut you a check, although I hear that doing a balance transfer and getting a check from Citi is pretty easy.