Miles on one card and again on another
 

I purchased savings bonds on my Starwood Amex card to take advantage of the Starwood promo. Just found out that since I have the Milage Plus Gold Visa, I can transfer the balance via a convenience check and get 1 mile for each two dollars transferred. Thus I will get miles on Amex for the original purchase. Then I will pay the bill with a Milage Plus convenience check transferring the balance to that credit card (which I will pay immediately, but there is a $50. fee) and I will get up to 10,000 miles on United! I was very careful since the convenience check says 'NO MILES FOR TRANSFERS" but the cc website said yes, so I called and the determining factor is if you have the gold card.

Do balance transfers hurt your credit rating?

No. I have done plenty of them any my credit is excellent. Though I was always progressing to pay off the balance, I did not just transfer it continually and allow it to grow.

My DL Amex is always sending me balance transfer checks, which usually stipulate "no points earned"; but one time, I got some that said "up to 5000 points maximum may be earned'. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I over-paid my Amex account so I had a $5K credit balance, then wrote the transfer check to my Visa. That way, even though the checks usually start accruing interest immediately, since I never had a negative balance, no interest ever accrued.

I did that too... they never sent me again those promotional checks. They must have a software selecting only those who are profitable.