App-O-Rama Part 4: Playing the 0% Balance Transfer Game on the Advance Level

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:

1. Do BT with one card with the combine credit limit.
2. At the 11th month, pay off all your balance.
3. Call your other 0% APR Chase card, and transfer the credit limit from your used up 0% apr card to your “new” one.
4. Ask for a balance transfer check and deposit it into your 5% interest earning bank account.
5. 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?

1. Call them and ask for a BT check.
2. 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.