eajusa

Correct. I know from personal experience as well. I also think Restil has summed it up well.

Grog

...which begs the question, why should you care about your credit score if you're not intending on getting a loan anytime soon? Why care about something that primarily offers you the opportunity to buy things you can’t afford? (If the answer is CC churning, most CC companies would still approve a card in spite of a slight drop in score. In fact, they might actually deny a card even with an 800+ score, if you have lots of available, unused credit.)

nrr

When I've used a chase 0% promo offer, I always do it on a (Chase) card I rarely use. I set-up autopay to pay the minimum each month, when the promo period is over I pay the outstanding balance in FULL.
I once used the promo to pay for a new car--the big plus for me was the car had no lein and the TITLE was "clear".^

mary mary

Often (always?) these balance transfers only apply to transfers from other banks. Chase wants you to transfer a balance from Citi, not transfer from one Chase card to another.

serpens

Thanks for the citation. Certainly it carries more weight than someone who answers the phone at Chase.

serpens

I have often wondered, and hope someone will give a reasoned answer.

Grog

The only reason I've heard that sounded even somewhat plausible was for a credit check as a potential tenant of a rental property, but the same "things you can’t afford" applies here, too.

For an upscale apartment, a landlord might be looking for a solid 600+ credit rating. But the lack of a 600+ rating isn't a problem if someone brings a larger security deposit or makes a few rent payments in advance. And if you don't have the cash for a larger security deposit or to make advance payments, you probably shouldn't be renting an upscale apartment, at least not at that price.

Society has everyone brainwashed about credit ratings, when instead we should just focus on not allowing anyone to steal our identity and obtain credit using our name.

garykung

Although I believe you, it is not plausible.

While not required by any law, a credit check as a potential tenant of a rental property serves 2 purposes:

1. To ensure there is no judgment against the potential tenant.

2. To ensure the potential tenant's payment history is good.

Depending on how the landlords run the rental business, not all of the credit checks come with a credit score.

Don't forget - many rental businesses are SMBs and most of the landlords don't know how to read a credit report professionally.

Grog

We agree completely. Plausible...as in "seeming reasonable" or "persuasive", but not necessarily true. While you're right that landlords can't always read a credit report, professional property managers can.

All told, I should've avoided using a word with multiple definitions (not unlike using the abbreviation SMB ).

trouble747

I think the biggest "catch" (if you can call it that) is that when you're carrying a balance (even at zero percent) you do not get a grace period on non-zero percent purchases. Though in my experience you can usually wipe out the higher interest balance by paying the minimum payment due plus the higher interest balance (including any interest charges).

1% fee for 12 months isn't bad...though Chase usually offers longer terms for 2%. The best I usually see is from Citi, which is around 18 months or more with a fee capped at $75.

jediwho

The main reason is I would like to get two CCs in the next six months or so (US Bank Club Carlson). But agreed, that's not a deal breaker. The second is the concern of the unexpected time when one would need a higher credit score. Employers in my profession look at credit history, leasing cars (where the score matters a lot), etc.

jediwho

The strange thing is that despite being classified as a Chase Private Client (no idea how that happened) and a former Citi Gold client, none of these banks have offered me 0% interest rate transfers. I usually get offers from Bank of America and Barclays.

Grog

Again, even with a car lease, if credit is well-established, the history and current available credit will matter much more than the score.

I'm sorry to say (and I certainly don't mean this personally to you, but rather a statement to society in general): the powers-that-be have the proletariat brainwashed on credit scoring. Because they want us all to borrow, borrow, borrow.

pinniped

I used to play the 0% offers pretty aggressively back when interest rates were higher. Just throw the cash in a money market fund and set up autopays to make sure you didn't miss a payment. Banks definitely applied payments to the lowest rate first, so you were taking that credit card entirely out of commission if you wanted to play a 0% game with it.

Now that rule has changed, but the ability to collect material gains from a near-risk-free investment aren't there. So these days, I mostly ignore the 0% offers. Seems like most of 'em have 3% juice upfront, which more than kills off the investment possibility (for a risk-averse person like me, anyway).

Even when I was playing this game a *lot*, I kept my total utilization a little under 40%. I noticed that my scores didn't drop much when I moved into the 20-40% band, but the minute I crossed into the 40-60% total utilization band, my numbers dropped quite a bit. Plus I think banks looked at me differently, because the 0% offers would slow and even the nature of the daily snail-mail-spam would change to less-lucrative cards. When you stop getting peppered with 100,000-mile signup bonuses and start getting $50 gas card offers, you know you gotta back off a little. So in a way, you're throttled on how much 0% action you can run.

Whether the numbers and thresholds are different now, I don't know.

jan_believes

BOA is offering a 0% APR on BTs with no transfer fee for about the first 60 days from opening. It's good for about 12-14 months, depending on when you begin the first BT.

But, I would definitely recommend no purchases be made during the 0% term.