Doctor of Credit

For those tossing up whether to get the checking account or not, here are two things that may sway you:

Free Museum entry at a lot of places nationwide
$100 checking account promo if your work banks with BofA

sdsearch

I'm confused. What does free museum entry have to do with whether to get the checking account or not?

From the page you linked:
And T&Cs also says "any valid" credit or debit card.

And there's a link to apply for "the card that gets you in", and it lets you apply for a credit card there.

So I see no need to get a checking account to use the free museum benefit with a BofA credit card.

Doctor of Credit

My bad, almost certain the benefit used to be for checking account customers only. Looks like it isn't anymore, thanks for correcting me!

sdsearch

But that was someone else. I have something like 6 or 8 or 10 and that's ok for me too!

In other words, there's no one number that's "safe" for everyone, but I see no need to assume that 2-3 is the maximum number for you, just because you read that it might be for someone else who's credit history you don't really know.

Ie, it could be what proportion of your cards have balances. In my case, even if I have 6 or 8 or 10 with a balance, I also have a dozen more without a balance.

Also, the size of the balance may matter. Many of mine have a balance less than $100. (As would a Better Balance card set up for some small recurring charge.)

Also, whether the balance is carried or is paid off in full every month makes a big difference.

But even carrying a balance: I used to have (about a year or two ago) five cards with balance transfers. Before paying three of them off, I lowered their individual utilizations, and that's what made my credit score go up (noticeably). Paying them off in full did not make me credit score go up (significantly) further.

So the other question is how much of an effect on a credit score does one more balance of $10, paid of in full every month make. And I bet for someone with a deep and wide credit history, it's "in the noise".

jan_believes

A balance must appear on the BBR card when the statement cycles to qualify for the $25 quarterly earning.

Now, before, someone reacts, this is not deal breaker. Unless you buy something that does use a high percentage of the CL. I actually have to consider this myself. But, only on one card.

I have a silly CL of $200 on one card. Have tried to negotiate, persuade, suggest, etc., that BOA cooperate with me on this so that I don't have to manage such a poor account but, ok, I digress.

So, if I buy a $buck's worth of gas while filling up with one of my other more sensible CCs, I leave the $1 to cycle (pay if off with a few clicks from my BOA checking account before the due date). What is that? One percent of $200? Three times? And, I get $30 back? This is an issue? Not for me.

I've had BOA cards for years. That's valuable to me for my credit file.

My other BOA BBR has a $7600 CL (again cannot negotiate it to something better in my BOA card portfolio. Have tried). Won't repeat the example above. One gets it.

Not directed at any one member here, just to anyone interested.

Don't sweat a 1% utilization (or less with my 2nd example). I am not going for the GOLD on my credit score, just enough to make my financial picture look reliable to the banks. Do what's best for you.

For AFT users, this is an excellent way to pay a $3 fee once a month. It's not like you are spending the $9 to make the $25-$30. If you use AFT for your purposes, you have to pay it anyway....

jan_believes

Just make sure the auto pay date is after the statement closes and before due date.

I haven't seen any terms that would disqualify such a purchase.

butterfingerwrapper

Hey guys? (and ladies)

Possible game changer. I opened one of these cards in September along with a BoA savings account.

Netflix charge: 9/18
Paid off: 9/23
Statement closing date: 9/26

I messed up, right? Should have at least let it post. I wrote it off, but yesterday I had $30 deposited into my BoA Savings. (Thank you PimpTheMonkey for saying that you needed to change your redemption option to savings.)

To repeat, my statement had a zero balance owed and only showed my Netflix charge and payoff. So I ask was I lucky, or did this become a little easier for those worrying about their credit score?

sbft77

This may just be an exception for the first quarter that you had the card; it might not work for future quarters.

If your card was opened in the middle of a quarter, they don't expect you to meet all the requirements for that quarter. (The "Better Balance Rewards Program Rules" talk about this somewhat, though they're not clear about exactly which rules apply for the partial quarter.)

For converted cards, though, I've seen reports that the partial quarter exception doesn't apply, e.g., they look at the payments you made in previous months with your old card.

butterfingerwrapper

That's actually a good point sbft77. Part of me wants to see if I can get it for the next quarter by paying before the statement cuts but the rest of me feels like it's too long to wait and see if I make $30.

TheDapperDon

I switched to the Travel rewards as well. It's a solid card.

dajoip

Any good suggestions for low-value recurring charges to put on this card and automate the process?

sdsearch

Anything you subscribe to that is charged monthly. But only you know what you subscribe to!

Among the subscriptions that I have that I could move is $6.95 Tivo (grandfathered from original Tivo to a new Roamio) and a $10ish online newspaper access subscription. Another category is online streaming services that charge monthly (like Netflix or Hulu Plus), but Amazon Prime wouldn't work because it charges annually.

But if you don't have any monthly-billed subscriptions already, beware incurring one that ends up costing you more than (or at least most of) what you get back, and that you really didn't need. For example, while renters insurance might be low if charged monthly, getting charged for insurance monthly may mean that you're paying big interest rates to the insurance company, compared to paying it once yearly. Similarly, those services (like ExpertFlyer) that you can subscribe to either monthly or yearly, typically cost less if you subscribe to them yearly.

So only things that have no annual billing option tend to be at their best value when billed monthly.

Meanwhile, only fairly small monthly bills make for a good return on investment here. So while I have a storage unit that auto bills me $200+ a month, I would never consider moving that charge to this card (from the transferrable-to-airlines/hotels points card I have it on).

krazykanuck

To the above points, I opened the Better Balance card mid quarter earlier this year and received the full $30 ($25 + $5 BoA customer bonus) for the quarter despite only having one payment in the calender quarter. I continue to get the full $30 even though my monthly balance is quite low. Currently I'm realizing a 100+% return on this card.

dajoip

Thanks for your input. I was more wondering if there's something that's known to be out there that'd be a very small, recurring monthly charge. I can always put one of my monthly utility bills or something else similar, but that'd be anywhere from $10-30/month and I thought maybe there's something else available that's much smaller that I could set up to automate everything.

MVF Trekker

I rarely use this card so are you supposed to close with a balance each month of each of the quarters to receive the bonus for that quarter? Or is it enough just to have a balance in 1 month of each quarter?