You are making money with app-o-rama and bank-o-rama. What other “offensive strategies” to increase your side income? If you have the time, I suggest to do the followings for more money.
Of course, the best tip I can give you is to check my website often for more ways to make money.
My final advice is to get your “defensive strategies” game to the maximum level. Don’t worry about being called “frugal” and stop trying to “keep up with the Jones.” If you want to change your current situation, you must be proactive with the tips below on “defensive strategies.”
The last thing I will mention is that no matter how old you are, what your situation in life or financial status is, you can always go back to school for a higher paying salary. If you only have a GED, well go to a technical school or trade school. Just a Bachelors degree? then look into a Masters program. Look ahead with other job opportunities and career advancement!
After app-o-rama, the next best thing is to do a bank-o-rama. I made over 1K in bank bonuses last year from Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, etc. A lot of time, they only do a check on what is called a Bank Chex System. Some banks don’t even check your credit report. Even if they did, the hits will go away in about six months.
Before I list all the current bonuses, lets go over a few important points. First, make sure you know the terms of the bonuses. Some banks required you to have Direct Deposit. Some have minimum deposit or bill payment requirements. Then the dreaded part of closing accounts since some have fees for closing early. You need to know the “when it is okay to close” date without paying any fees.
I suggest you follow these steps to maximize all your bank bonuses:
- Open a paypal account. Certain banks will count Paypal’s deposit as Direct Deposit. Here’s a complete list.
- Make $25 by requesting an ING referral link: No fees whatsoever, all you need is deposit $250 to get $25 bonus, once you get it, you can withdraw, simply write back and say you want an ING referral and I will send you one.
- Make $35 by requesting a Bank of America referral link: All you need is deposit $100 to get $35 bonus (50 days wait), once you get it, you can withdraw and cancel the account, simply write back and say you want an BOA referral and I will send you one. (Do $1 paypal or ING deposit to meet the DD requirement to get away from fees)
- Make $20 by requesting a Virtual Bank referral link: No fees whatsoever, all you need is deposit $100 to get $20 bonus, once you get it, you can withdraw, simply write back with your first and last name and say you want an Virtual Bank referral and I will send you one. You can refer people to make up to $1000.
- Make $25 by requesting a 5.10% Amboy Direct Premium Savings: This one the highest savings online account, and it comes with a bonus. You must deposit 3K for 90 days to get the $25 referral bonus. Send me an email to hustlermoneyblog@gmail.com with your first and last name, with Amboy Referral on your subject line.
Steps to open Paypal or add new bank accounts to Paypal Account:
- Go into your Paypal account
- Hit the withdraw tab on the main page
- Under options, click on Transfers fund to your bank account
- On this page, right under To, you see Add bank account tab.
- Enter bank name, account number, routing number.
- Wait for the two initial deposits and verify it in your Paypal account.
- Then send a dollar each month to your bank account to meet DD requirement.
Now you know how much I love Bank of America. Once you have an account with them, you can open unlimited accounts with them and no hard pull is done on your credit report.
- BOA $50 bonus: Good till 12/31/07
- BOA $100 bonus: offer code CH100CTA
- BOA $100 bonus: offer code CH100CSP
With BOA, you can make $250 with Keep the Change program. Just keep on pumping $1.01 gas 250 times. Make more money with their affiliates program: $50 gas card and $50 Lowe’s gift card. Also, $15 more with scheduled transfer.
Make sure you use their online message system within your account to complain about your bonuses. Just send them an email asking about your bonuses. You always want to transfer $1 from Paypal to your BOA’s account to meet their DD requirement. Once you get your bonus, transfer all your money to your original account, then close it asap. Always keep one open since more bonuses will show up throughout the year.
Chase specifically tell you that only 1 bonus per year, however, they do not care. Here’s their $100 bonus good till 6/31/07. With Chase, your account must remained open for 6 months before closing. Otherwise there will be a fee. Paypal $1 each month to cover DD requirement. If you see another Chase bonus, just open it at your local bank and make sure the CSR guarantee you the bonus.
Unlike Chase and BOA, Citibank will only give you 1 bonus for your lifetime. The best one right now is their $200 bonus. There is no link to it, and you must call the Citibank number 1-866-422-0592. Mention the code MVS2 to the CSR for your $200 bonus. Make sure you make two monthly bill payments each month for 6 consecutive months to get your money. Ask the CSR for more details.
If you don’t want the bill payment route, there is the Citi $100 ultimate savings account bonus.
How about making $50 with Everbank? or $100 with Compass bank? or thousand of dollars from local banks?
I can’t list every bank bonus in the world, so check out my page for all past bonuses. There are more specific info on every individual bank bonus at bankdeals and ibankdesign.
By now you should have a pretty good amount of money in that 6% Savings account. I don’t need to tell you to not touch that money period(other than to pay your monthly minimum payment). This is guarantee money earning interest. Don’t do anything fancy like putting into a mutual fund. You want guarantee money in a liquid 5% savings account with easy access.
Now come my final installment of App-O-Rama- taking care of all those monthly bills. This is the main reason why people won’t do App-O-Rama. Some of the excuses are “too much hassle”, “I can’t keep this up”, “If I miss one payment, I’m screw..blah blah”, etc. Lets be real. If someone tell me that you gonna give me 5K every year to take care of a few bills..sign me up man!
Here is how I make the arbitrage game less stressful:
- I do all my balance transfer at the same time
- Set a reminder in my cell phone and in my Google Calendar around the 11th month to pay off my balance.
- Add all my credit cards info in my Everbank Account (Everbank.com is where I do my monthly minimum payment..check out my review here)
- Set a recurring minimum monthly payment to all my 0% APR cards once I get my first statement.
What about BT fees? Didn’t you say there are ways to get out of that? It worked a few times, but this required some hustling skills.
- For Bank of America credit cards, I was able to talk to the CSR to do BT with no fees. Even though my cards originally say that there is a 3% BT fees, CSR are willing to work with you. When you first activated your card with the CSR, and I am sure they will mention BT. Now act like you don’t know about BT and to ask about the BT fees. Say something like, “wow..that is great..I want to do BT right now..but I don’t want to pay any BT fees”…or “I hear BOA offers no BT fees..is that true?”…some BS along those lines.
- With Chase credit cards, there is a $75 cap fee on BT. Now they won’t advertise this, but when you do BT with Chase…tell them that “my friend did BT within thirty days..he was offered no BT fee…can you give me the same offer?” You want to play dumb at the beginning and act like you don’t know jack. You want them to hype you up. Stick out carrot lines like “yeah, I would love to do a 15K BT right now..but only if there is no BT fees.” If the CSR says he doesn’t know, ask to speak to the manager. Check out this thread from fatwallet.
- Most Citi cards I listed have no BT fees.
- I did BT with my Capital One card. There was a $50 max BT fee. I called back a week later with lines like “wait a minute..today when I check my online statement, there is a $50 fee…now I was told that there was no BT fee..what is going on?” You get what I am saying. I spoke to the manager and she took the fee off. This might work with Chase too. Again, if these methods are not your style, then don’t do it. Most of these methods are YMMV.
What about Credit Protector from those credit card companies? Tell them no, you are not interested when you first activated your card. However, once you are done with BT, you will have a lot of 0 balance cards with $100 or $500 credit limit that you keep open. Why not take advantage of the bonuses whenever you join credit protector such as this $100 gas card from citi and make money by signing up.
Chase will send you a lot of $20 bonus for their Credit Protector too. Of course you only want to do this on your 0 balance crappy cards. You know the drill: get the bonus, cancel, then recycle the process. For other cards such as AmEx or BOA, call them up and ask if they have similar program. E.G. “hey, what’s credit protector? Can you tell me more? Citi is offering $100 bonus..do you offer the same?” ..etc.
Credit Protector simply means they will pay your monthly payment whenever you lose your job or moving to a new house. If you are moving to a new house or lose a job in the middle of the year during your app-o-rama, you can make serious money by actually signing up for credit protector in advance with your 20K balance card.
An equal important factor during your app-o-rama year is to keep calling them about increasing your credit line with your current cards. Of course you always want them to increase without doing a hard pull. Make sure you stated that clearly every time you call them. Some cards such as AmEx and Citi will let you do it online without doing a hard pull. More info on that here and here. You want to do this every three month on all your cards because you want higher credit limit overall. It’s always a good idea to get your debt/credit limit ratio to be as low as possible.
On a side note, I hope you have enjoy my Guide to HustlerMoneyBlog Part 1 through 5. I want to thank all the true hustlers on Fatwallet. I’m sure there are many different ways to do this, therefore you must continue to read and research with the latest update on App-O-Rama. Feel free to add your 2 cents.
Peace out,
How is the App-o-Rama going? If my guessing is correct, you should have gotten a few instant approvals and some deferments on your credit card applications. I wouldn’t worry so much about the deferments. Just sit back and wait for the credit cards to roll in no longer than two weeks max. In the meantime, set up a system on how to manage the cards and review on all the terms of your card offers. Again, do an excel spreadsheet and keep all your cards separated from bonus money to 0% APR to everyday usage cards. Write down the fees and such with Balance Transfer, no annual fees, or the amount of time of 0% APR.Once you have your cards come in, immediately activated by calling the number in front of the card and talk to the CSR. Ask them to confirm the offer and make sure it matches the terms you signed up with. Fax them the proof if you have to. At this time, ask to increase your credit limit too
without a hard pull. It may or may not work since there is no harm in asking.Next, gather up all your bonus cards and charge a dollar or two immediately since most require first purchase. Get to your account online and pay it off immediately. **You do not need to wait for your statement to come in**
Now, gather all your balance transfer cards from the same issuer. For example, lets say Chase. Since Chase has a $75 Balance Transfer fee, you only want to BT on one card. E.G. I had about 5 Chase cards approved. Of course, I called and activated the cards immediately. Now, I got three cards with 0% APR for 12 months with $75 max BT fee. I called up my Chase Rewards card, and one by one, I asked to transfer the Credit Limit from my other Chase Cards to this Chase Sony Card. It went from 5K limit to 25K credit limit.
Why do I want to do this?
- Instead of 5 BT fees, I have only one.
- You want to keep up with as little as possible with the amount of cards you are Balance Transferring.
It is a good idea because you can extend your 0% BT from 12 months to 24 months. How? 0% APR balance transfer time is not activated until you actual initiate the balance transfer. From the terms:
Balance transfer APR: As long as first balance transfer is completed within 12 months from date of account opening, 0.00% for 12 months from date of first balance transfer. After that, XX.XX% variable.
[…]Transaction fee for balance transfers: 3% of the amount of each balance transfer, $5 minimum, $50 maximum. However, there is no fee with the 0.00% APR balance transfer offer described above.
For example, say you got your card in July with 0% APR, this means that you can wait till June of 2008 and do Balance Transfer and still receive the full 0% APR for one year.
Here’s a quick summary:
- Do BT with one card with the combine credit limit.
- At the 11th month, pay off all your balance.
- Call your other 0% APR Chase card, and transfer the credit limit from your used up 0% apr card to your “new” one.
- Ask for a balance transfer check and deposit it into your 6% interest earning savings account.
- Hence, your new 12 months 0% APR cycle starts again.
**Important** Don’t ever close any credit cards ever! When you are transferring credit limit to your 0% APR card, you want to leave the other cards open with the lowest minimum they will allow you.
The above steps should be done with Citi, Discover, and Bank of America.
With Bank of America, you can sweet talk to the CSR into waiving the BT fee if any. It worked for me when I told the CSR that I really wanted to do Balance Transfer, but I’m unwilling to pay for the BT fee. The CSR was able to waived the fee.
On the utilization of % of your credit limit, you need to understand how much credit limit you have in total. My rule of thumb is no more than 90% of credit limit on any individual card. Overall, you want to use less than 70% of your credit limit all together. You want your debt-ratio to be less than 70% so your credit score would not be hurt as much.
Your credit score will take a big hit at first after all the App-O-Rama. For every credit card you applied for, 3 to 5 points will be deducted from your credit score. When you do Balance Transfer, it will even take a bigger hit since now your debt/credit limit ratio is high. You want to monitor your credit report and file complaint if there is anything that doesn’t seem right. I wrote about more about understanding credit score here.
Of course, the first reaction is to worry about your credit score. Take an easy breather and try to understand the long term. Your credit line is so high that by the end of your BT’s payoff, your credit score will go even higher. The result will be more offers coming in for next year’s app-o-rama. It is also a good idea to check your credit report once a quarter at annualcreditreport.com and using your WaMu card for monthly credit score.
How to get money from Balance Transfer(BT):
- Call them and ask for a BT check.
- If they won’t send you a BT check, you can BT to your 0 balance Citi card. The amount will show up on your Citi account as negative balance. Call Citi or log on to your account to request a refund check.
With Bank of America or Chase, you can even request to balance transfer directly to your Bank account when talking to the CSR.
Come back tomorrow for more information about setup and management with all your credit cards, how to increase your credit limit, make more $$ though their credit protector, and hustle your ways out of Balance Transfer fees.
Now that you have your credit report straighten up and your 6% APY bank account open, it is time to make a list of cards you want to apply. These cards are good for everyday purchases. Without further ado, here’s my list of must have cards for regular usage with no annual fee.
Hustler’s Top Favorites:
- WaMu card - it’s the only card that will give you free credit report and FICO score monthly. This is a necessity because you want to monitor your credit score monthly. Plus you get 0% APR on purchases too. You might get a better deal if you are a customer already. Check your mail or visit your local branch.
- Citi mtvU Visa card - 5% back on restaurants, movie theaters, bookstores. No annual fee. 6 month 0% APR on balance transfer and purchases.
- Discover Open Road - 5% cash back on Gas and auto maintenance & 1% everything else. 0% APR on BT and purchases for 12 months. No annual fee.
- American Express SimplyCash - 5% cash back on Gas, office supplies, and wireless services & 1% back on everything else. No annual fee. 0% APR on purchases for 12 months.
- Citi Driver’s Edge - 6% cash back on Groceries, Drugstores, and Gas for 12 months. Then 3% thereafter. No annual fee. 0% APR on Balance Transfer for 12 months with No Balance Transfer Fee. Also a chance to double your points with 1 point/1 mile..making this card possibly 12% back.
- Chase Countrywide - 2% toward your mortgage with them. This 2% is on every purchases. Only worth it if you have a countrywide mortgage account.
- American Express Blue - 5% back on Groceries, Drugstores, and Gas after initial $6500 spending. 0% APR on purchases for 15 months. No annual fee.
Again, your must-have list might be slightly different. Cater it to your own needs. Up next is my second batch of must have cards for 0% APR Balance transfer for 12 months . They must have low or no Balance transfer fees & if possible, come with a bonus for first purchase:
- Discover Miles - 12000 miles bonus will even out w/ the max $75 BT fee. No annual fee. 12 months 0% APR on BT and purchases.
- Citi Professional - $100 bonus, no BT fee, and 12 months 0% APR on Balance Transfer.
- Citi AT&T Universal Rewards - 0% APR on Balance transfer for 12 months. No BT fee. 6000 bonus points = $50 bonus gift card after first purchase.
- Chase Home Improvement - 0% APR on Balance transfer for 12 months. $75 max BT fee. Free gift $40 value.
- Chase Sony - 0% APR on Balance transfer for 12 months. $75 max BT fee. 1500 bonus points after first purchase.
- Chase Platinum Visa - 0% APR on Balance transfer for 12 months. $75 max BT fee.
- Discover More Card Clear - 0% APR on BT for 12 months. $75 max BT fee.
- Discover Sealife Collection - 0% APR on BT for 12 months. $75 max BT fee.
Also, apply for about 4 Bank of America credit cards. It’s 12 months 0% APR, but it does say specifically about a cap BT fee. I have a few BOA cards, and they were willing to waive the BT fee for the first time when you talk to the CSR. I recommend the following BOA cards:
- BOA Worldpoints - 12 months 0% APR on Balance transfer.
- BOA Trip Rewards - 12 months 0% APR on Balance transfer.
- BOA Visa Signature - 12 months 0% APR on Balance transfer.
- BOA AmEx Rewards - 12 months 0% APR on Balance transfer.
Your next must have list is to apply for Business credit cards. What if I don’t own a business? Well, if you sold one thing on Ebay, you are consider a sole proprietorship. When filling out for application, simply fill out your real name as your business name. Put down sole proprietorship as your type of business and your social security as your tax id. The best thing about business credit cards is that the credit balance will not show on your credit report, hence it won’t hurt your credit score.
The cards below are my recommended list of business credit cards. Balance transfer is cap and no annual fee.
- Advanta Rewards - 15 months 0% APR on BT. $50 cap on BT fee.
- Advanta Platinum - 12 months 0% APR on BT. $50 cap on BT fee.
- Chase Rebate - 12 months 0% APR on BT. $75 cap on BT fee.
- Chase GM card - 12 months 0% APR on BT. $75 cap on BT fee.
- Citi Business - 12 months 0% APR on BT. $50 cap on BT fee.
- Citi Thank You - 12 months 0% APR on BT. $50 cap on BT and $100 bonus.
Last but not least, you must make a list of credit card with bonus such as $100 after first purchase. This could be in the form of cash or gift cards in thank you points. If a card that has $100 bonus after first purchase and 0% APR on Balance Transfer, you want to spend a dollar on the card, pay it off right away via online, get your $100 bonus, then do Balance transfer to max out on all benefits.
Here’s my must have list for all bonus cards. If it has an annual fee, then it must be free the first year. Once you get your bonus, make sure you cancel it so you won’t get a fee next year.
Free airline tickets:
- AmEx Delta SkyMiles Gold - 15000 skymiles after first purchase.
- AmEx Delta Business Skymiles - 15000 skymiles after first purchase. No annual fee first year.
- Citi AA/advantage - 20000 bonus miles. No annual fee for first year.
- Citi AA/Advantage Bronze - 5000 bonus miles. No annual fee for first year.
Free hotel stay:
- Starwood Preferred Guest - 10000 Starwood points. No annual fee first year.
- Starwood Preferred Guest Business - 10000 Starwood points. No fee first year.
- Citi Hilton HHonors - 15000 Hilton honor bonus points. No annual fee.
- BOA Choice Privileges - 8000 points after first purchase. No annual fee.
$100 in gift cards:
- AmEx Rewards Gold Card - 10000 points after first purchase. No fee first year.
- AmEx Rewards Gold Business - 10000 points after first purchase. No fee first year.
- Citi Premier Pass Business - 15000 Thank You points. No fee first year.
It’s a good idea to get your Credit limit as high as possible. Why? Because the higher you CL is, the lower your debt/ratio balance is once you balance transfer later. Your credit score will take a hit, so one way to make your credit limit even higher is to apply for Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC). HELOC is like a credit card’s credit limit. Of course you don’t want to use it because of the rate. You just want it for the credit limit on your credit score.
Check out these HELOC:
Citi® MyHomeEquity
Discover® Home Loans
CompareLenders.com
You might want to use an Excel Spreadsheet for all the offers above. Make a printout if you have to because Credit companies will sometime change the offer. You can haggle with them and show them a proof. Also bookmark this page for later reference.
How to fill out Credit card applications:
Any application tips you wonder? Well, tell the truth about employment and housing information, but reach for the sky when ask about financial household income. If you are a college student, your household income should be your mom, dad, brothers and sisters + any “relative” that lives with you combined. When ask if you want to balance transfer now on the application, I would delay this because you want to see what you can get first from the same issuer and later to combine credit limit on one card for Balance Transfer. Now go apply with your Roboform and come back a couple days later. I will write more extensively on what to do next once you get your credit cards on part 4 of Guide to HustlerMoneyBlog.
Welcome back. I hope you have done your homework. A quick reminder: Do so at your own risk. I cannot overemphasize the importance of educating yourself from all sources on fatwallet. Continue to read and research on App-o-Rama, then take a week to formulate a plan. Lets review….
Some basic terms:
- Balance Transfer(BT) - this is not a cash advance, this is where you ask the credit company to send or write you a check for the amount you want. You can then deposit the check into your bank account. You can also transfer the amount you want to another credit card.
- Customer Service Representative (CSR)- this is the person you talk to when you call the 1-800- number in the back of your credit card. By talking to them, you can ask for an increase in credit limit, solve any issues, and make deals with them.
- Credit Limit Increase(CLI)- this is where you call the CSR to increase your credit limit. The higher the better.
- Credit Score (CS)- everybody in this country got a credit score. It determines if and how much you can get with your credit cards offers.
- Credit Transfer (CT)- say you have an old Chase credit card, and now you just got a new Chase credit card with 0 % Apr. You can ask the CSR to transfer the credit from your old card to your new card in order to get more money out of Balance Transfer.
- 0% APR - simply means interest per year at 0 percent. All payments go toward your principal balance.
- Hard Pull (HP) - this is a pull done by credit card company to see your credit history. Every time they do this, your credit score will go down by 5 points.
- Soft Pull(SP)- Check your credit history, but do not hurt your credit score.
Alright, now that you have done your research. You ready to get things started right? You want to apply bunch of 50 cards right away? Whooaawowwoow…Slow your roll playa… do the following steps below first:
- Sign up one of the above sites, get your credit report and FICO score, fix whatever you need to fix such as current address, pay any miss payment, and correct and double check mistakes. Do it now and cancel your service before the 30 days free trial is over.
- Now gather up all your current credit cards together. Call each one of them from the 1-800 number in the back of your card, ask the CSR to increase your credit limit WITHOUT DOING A HARD PULL. It’s very important that you ask the CSR specifically increasing your credit limit without doing a hard pull. Tell them you need more money because spending is high this month or that you have been with them for a long time. Talk to the manager if you have to. Remind them that you are willing to do a soft pull for the credit limit increase. The reason you want higher credit limit so later on your debt-ratio will be lower.
- Some issuers like Citi will only allow you to have 3 cards at one time, so you need to consolidate a couple of the Citi cards into one. Consolidating means combine all your credit limit together.
- Go download this program calls Roboform. The program is especially helpful because it will allow you to put in your information in advance. With one click, your credit card application will be filled up instantly. It allows you to reduce your time, hence making it possible to fill up to 50 credit cards in two hours.
- I highly recommend a combination of EverBank 3.25% APY checking for monthly minimum payment using their free bill pay and this 6% APY FNBO direct savings account. The rate is guaranteed till Sept. 28. If that doesn’t suit you, here is a top ten list of savings account in the country. If you want a brick and mortar one, try Wamu with 5% APY.
Come back tomorrow for a list of all of my must have credit cards on Part 3 of the Hustlermoneyblog Series.
Introduction
Many of you have read my App-o-rama series from part 1 through 5 which are the pinnacle of this website. Credit card issuers know full well of articles such as mine, sites like fatwallet.com et al, and other popular blogs that talk extensively about the credit arbitrage game to make money. Then why are they letting people making money from them? Don’t get me wrong..they’re no fools. It is because they are still profiting from the 0% APR promotion from the majority of Americans who continue to borrow and getting themselves further into debt. They have also gotten a lot stingier with their 0% APR Balance Transfer(BT) offers and changing the terms on the promotions. So what now playa?
I proudly present my definitive guide to HustlerMoneyBlog:
- Definition: A combination of strategies on App-o-Rama, Bonus-o-Rama, and Bills-o-Rama to make money by increasing your side income and lessoning your daily expenses.
Apporama: Playing the credit card 0% BT game on the advance level
App-o-Rama, AOR, and Applications-on-Rampant are all terms use to describe by applying for many, possibly up to 50, credit cards at one time. The best scenario to be successful in getting all the credit cards’ offers is to apply in one day; ideally in one hour on a weekday in the morning hours. This is done to fool credit card issuers to giving you all the offers approved and lessoning the hits on your credit score.
Quick Q&A:
Question 1: Why the hell would I want to do this?
- To make money, lots and lots of money, possibly in the thousands
Question 2: Okay Hustler, how is signing on to many credit cards would make me rich?
- Well, I wouldn’t say rich..but definitely extra side money through credit cards’ sign-on bonuses such as cash, free miles for airplane tickets and hotel stay, free points for gift certificates, free ipods, etc….but the main one is to do Balance Transfer(borrow money at 0% APR and put it into a 6% Savings account to make money).
Question 3: Who should do this?
- Straight up, this is for your entertainment information…You do this sh$t at your own risk. The answer is for people who have decent credit score, 650 or above, who no longer or need to buy a home within one year.
Question 4: How much do you make a year from doing this?
- This year, I have made over $3K on Balance Transfer alone. People who have better credit score have reported to make up to 10K and, if you do this right, can be recycled every year.
Question 5: What are the negative fallouts from doing App-o-Rama?
- It will temporarily screw your credit score for a year. Car and house insurance rate may increase due to the decrease in your credit score. With the money that you are borrowing with BT, your credit score may take a 100 points hit with your debt/credit limit ratio in the first month. At the end of your 12 months 0% APR term, and with all the money pay back, your credit score will actually be higher than when you first started it.
Above is pretty much a quick summary of App-o-Rama. Before I get into the nit-picking details from A to Z, I need you to spend a couple of days reading this thread on fatwallet. Check out all the information and personal App-O-Ramas on the thread. I want you to be familiar with some of the terms about App-O-Rama such as Balance Transfer(BT), AOR, Credit Limit Increase (CLI), Credit Transfer (CT), Customer Service Rep.(CSR), FICO score..etc etc. I cannot provide everything, and may leave some of the details out. You must read first and educate yourself, hence reading the next few posts from me will be less of a headache. Come back for tomorrow edition of HustlerMoneyBlog Part 2.
This Series has been updated: Check out the New Part 5 here.
By now you should have a pretty good amount of money in that 5% Savings account. I don’t need to tell you to not touch that money period(other than to pay your monthly minimum payment). This is guarantee money earning interest. Don’t do anything fancy like putting into a mutual fund. Again, this is not your money really…you are just shuffling money around. You want guarantee money in a liquid 5% savings account with easy access.
Now come my final installment of App-O-Rama- taking care of all those monthly bills. This is the main reason why people won’t do App-O-Rama…”too much hassle”..”I can’t keep this up”…”If I miss one payment, I’m screw..blah blah”….That is krazyy…If someone tell me that you gonna give me 5K every year to take care of a few bills..sign me up man! Here is what I do:
- I do all my balance transfer at the same time
- Set a reminder in my cell phone and in my Google Calendar around the 11th month to pay off my balance.
- Add all my credit cards info in my Everbank Account (Everbank.com is where I do my monthly minimum payment..check out my review here)
- Set a recurring minimum monthly payment to all my 0% APR cards once I get my first statement.
What about BT fees? Didn’t you say there are ways to get out of that? haha…I did a few times..although it may be a little dirty…
- For Bank of America credit cards, I was able to talk to the CSR to do BT with no fees..even though my cards originally say that there is a 3% BT fees. When you first activate your card with the CSR, I am sure they will mention BT…act like you don’t know about BT…keep asking about the BT fees…then start to hustle..say something like..”wow..that is great..I want to do BT right now..but I don’t want to pay any BT fees”…or “I hear BOA offers no BT fees..is that true?”…some BS along those lines.
- With Chase credit cards, there is a $75 cap fee on BT. Now they won’t advertise this, but when you do BT with Chase…tell them that “my friend did BT within thirty days..he was offered no BT fee…can you give me the same offer?”…of course play dumb at the beginning..act like you don’t know jack…get them to hype you up. Stick out carrot lines like “yeah, I would love to do a 15K BT right now..but only if there is no BT fees.” If the CSR says he doesn’t know…ask to talk to the manager. Check out this thread from fatwallet.
- My Citi cards have no BT fees…sweeeettt.
- I did BT with my Capital One card. There was a $50 max BT fee. I called back a week later with lines like “wait a minute..today when I check my online statement, there is a $50 fee…now I was told that there was no BT fee..what is going on?” ….you get what I am saying. I spoke to the manager and she took the fee off. This might work with Chase too. Again, if these methods offend you…haha…then you shouldn’t be here.
What about Credit Protector from those credit card companies? Tell them no, you are not interested when you first activated your card. However, once you are done with BT, you will have a lot of crappy cards with $100 or $500 credit limit that you keep open. Why not take advantage of the bonuses whenever you join credit protector such as this $100 gas card from citi from those those crappy cards.
Chase will send you a lot of $20 bonus for their Credit Protector too. Of course you only want to do this on your 0 balance crappy cards…get the bonus, cancel, then recycle the process. For other cards such as AmEx or BOA, call them up and again..use carrot lines such as “hey, what’s credit protector? Can you tell me more? Citi is offering $100 bonus..do you offer the same?” ..etc.
Credit Protector simply means they will pay your monthly payment whenever you lose your job or moving to a new house. If you are moving to a new house or lose a job in the middle of the year during your app-o-rama, you can make serious money by actually signing up for credit protector in advance with your 20K balance card. I will talk about more on another day about how to take advantage of this program.
An equal important factor during your app-o-rama year is to keep calling them about increasing your credit line with your current cards. Of course you always want them to increase without doing a hard pull. Make sure you stated that clearly every time you call them. Some cards such as AmEx and Citi will let you do it online without doing a hard pull. More info on that here. You want to do this every other month on all your cards because you want higher credit limit overall to subdue your debt amount, hence more 0% offers will come in for next year app-o-rama.
On the side note, I hope you have enjoy my App-o-Rama Part 1 through 5. I want to thank all the true hustlers on Fatwallet. I’m sure there are many different ways to do this, hence always read read read…research research research. I will continue to update this App-O-Rama. Feel free to add your 2 cents.
Peace out, I’m ricccccchhhhhhhhhhhhh Biatch!
This Series has been updated: Check out Guide to HustlerMoneyBlog Part 4.
How is the app-o-rama going? You got a few instant approvals and a few deferments? Don’t worry..you just gotta sit back and wait for them to approve you. It should take no more than two weeks for all the cards to come in. In the meantime, set up a system on how to manage the cards. Again, do an excel spreadsheet and keep all your cards separated from bonus $$ to 0% APR. Write down the fees and such with Balance Transfer, no annual fees, or the amount of time of 0% APR.
Since I don’t know what cards you have, I will talk about what I did with my credit cards. I had about 10 Chase cards approved. Of course, I called and activated the cards immediately. Spoke to the CSR about any bonuses I got, such as with the Sony Chase Card, if so, I do the first purchase to get the $100 bonus, then pay it off immediately. You don’t have to wait for the first statement, so you just need to set a paybill account online with your online banking. Now, I got three cards with 0% APR for 12 months with $75 max BT fee. I called up my Chase Rewards card, and one by one, I asked to transfer the Credit Limit from my other Chase Cards to this Chase Rewards Mastercard. It went from 5K limit to 25K credit limit.
Why do I want to do this?
- Instead of 5 BT fees, I have only one.
- You want to keep up with as little as possible with the amount of cards you are Balance Transferring.
It is a good idea because you can extend your 0% BT from 12 months to 24 months. How? 0% APR balance transfer time is not activated until you actual initiate the balance transfer. For example, say you got your card in January with 0% apr…this means that you can wait till December of 2007 and do Balance Transfer then. My point is this:
- Do BT with one card with the combine credit limit.
- At the 11th month, pay off all your balance.
- Call your other 0% APR Chase card, and transfer the credit limit from your used up 0% apr card to your “new” one.
- Ask for a balance transfer check and deposit it into your 5% interest earning bank account.
- Hence, your new 12 months 0% apr cycle starts again.
**Important** Don’t ever close any credit cards ever! When you are transfering credit limit to your 0% APR card, you want to leave the crappy cards open with the lowest minimum they will allow you.
About the utilization of % with credit limit, you need to understand how much credit limit you have. My rule of thumb is no more than 90% of credit limit on any individual card. Overall, you want to use less than 70% of your credit limit all together. You want your debt-ratio to be less than 70% so your credit score would not be hurt as much and that new credit offers will come in at the time of your next app-o-rama.
Your credit score will take a big hit at first after all the App-O-Rama. When you do BT, it will even take a bigger hit since now you got debt. Don’t worry, now that you credit line is so big..and by the end of your BT payoff, your credit score will go even higher, hence you can recycle the App-O-Rama again next year with even a bigger credit line. It is also a good idea to check your credit report once a quarter at annualcreditreport.com
Another issue, how to get money through BT?
- Call them and ask for a BT check.
- If they won’t and you have a Citi card, you can BT to your 0 balance citi card. The amount will show up on your Citi account as negative balance. Call Citi or log on to your account to request a refund check.
Come back in a couple of days about setup and management with all your credit cards, how to increase your credit limit, make more $$ though their credit protector, and hustle your ways out of Balance Transfer fees.
This Series has been updates: The Definitive Guide to Hustlermoneyblog Part 3
A few recent comments recommend to only apply around twenty cards due to some rejections. Although I feel that would be a fine route, I feel the best way to go if you have good credit is to apply at a minimum 50 credit cards. Why do I feel this way? Lets take Chase credit cards for example. They do not limit you to the amount of cards you can get. Say you only get around 3 or 4 Chase cards with 0% APR BT for 12 months and you got approve to say 15 Chase Cards. You want to Transfer Credit from all the crappy Chase cards to your Chase 0% apr card by calling CSR. Hence, this will increase your credit limit on your 0% APR Chase Cards three-or fourfold. This mega App-O-Rama would be best to hit them in a short time frame, preferably on a weekday from 8-12AM. However some issuers will only limit you to a few cards. Who are they?
- Citi Cards: Allow 2 main cards every 60 days, however you can apply to these Co-Brand-Name Citi cards also: Good list of Citi Cards
- Discover Cards: 2-3 Limit
Here are the no limit ones, although they will catch on quick:
- American Express: No Limit
- Bank of America: No Limit
Here is a good list from fatwallet:
Card———————– Bonus ——————— BT Offer
Chase SonyStyle———— $150 ———————- 0% for 12 months with $75 fee apply here
Citi Simplicity Rewards—- $100 ———————- 0% for 12 months with no fee apply here
Citi Professional SM——- $150+$40 cardoffers ——- 0% for 12 months with no fee apply here
Chase Cash Plus Rewards—- $100 ———————- 0% for 12 months with $75 fee apply here
Citi AT&T Universal——– $50+$30 cardoffers ——– 0% for 12 months with no fee apply here
BofA Money Return———- $30 cardoffers ———— 0% for 6 months with no fee apply here
BofA Worldpoints———– $75 ———————– 0% for 12 months with 3% fee apply here
Discover Miles————- $75+$40 cardoffers ——– 0% for 12 months with no fee apply here
AMEX Starwood*————- $100+$40 cardoffers ——- No BT offer apply here
PNC Platinum Rewards——- $50———————— 0% for 12 months with no fee apply here
BofA Rewards AMEX———- $50 ———————– 0% for 12 months with 3% fee apply here
Chase Priority Club**—— $120 ———————- No BT offer apply here
AMEX Blue—————— $50 ———————– No BT Offer (0% upto 15 months on purchases) apply here
GE Money Platinum———- $0 ———————— 0% for 12 months with $75 fee apply here
Capital One Platinum——- $0 ———————— 0% for 12 months with $75 fee apply here
Citi Diamond Preferred—– $50+$30 from cardoffers—- 0% for 12 months with $75 fee apply here
Krogers 1-2-3 Rewards—— $0 ———————— 0% for 12 months with $60 fee apply here
HSBC GM Flexible———– $35 from cardoffers——– 0% for 12 months with $75 fee apply here
First National Rewards—– $50 ———————– 0% for 9 months with $75 fee apply here
I would recommend apply to all the cash reward cards from cardoffers.com, again, you must be a member. I estimate that you should get at least $500 cash bonus from cardoffers alone. Yes, double dipping from them and the Credit cards company.
How to apply for business cards if you don’t have a business? Easy, I’m pretty sure you have sold something on Ebay. That would make you a sole-proprietorship. Make sure you put your name as your business name and your social security # as your tax id number. Here is a good list of business cards.
Business credit cards are great because they do not go on your credit report. You can BT to the max and not worry about debt-credit limit ratio.
If you have a home, it might be a good idea to apply some Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) loans. Why? Because this is just like a credit card. You don’t have to spend it, and some has 0% Apr intro offers with no fees. Worst scenario, this will increase your credit limit overall, hence making your debt-ratio lower when you do balance transfer later on those 0% APR credit cards.
Any application tips you wonder? Well, tell the truth about employment and housing information, but reach for the sky when ask about financial household income. If you are a college student, your household income should be your mom, dad, brothers and sisters + any “relative” that lives with you combine. When ask if you want to balance transfer now on the application, I would delay this because you want to see what you can get first from the same issuer and later to combine credit limit on one card for Balance Transfer. Now go apply with your roboform, and come back a couple days later for more info on what to do next.
Next Page »
Top Cash Back
Top Gas Rewards
Top Business Rewards
Top Airline Rewards
Top Hotel Rewards
Top Student Cards
Top Travel Rewards
