I have found that the best offers go to people who they don’t think will use them. Your credit is checked before the offers are sent out.
If you have been late with payments or close to being maxed out, you rarely get 0% BT offers.
The offers came to me. I didn’t seek them out. I have great credit and high limits on cards that I rarely use.
I pay in full every month, just to get the benefits.
The 2% Citibank offer was too good to turn down. It was a large amount, and I’ve already had it for about 3 years.
It’s probably going to be 5 more years until it’s paid off, fixed at 2%.
As you probably know, with these offers, you should not use the card for ANYTHING else other than the cash advance or balance transfer. They are also hoping that you will be late with a payment, so they can jack the rate up to 30%. I am sure that happens to many people. I just have them auto debit the payment so it’s their fault if it’s late, not mine.
My newest favorite card is a NCL Cruise Line MC.
Roughly $17,000 spent gets a $500 credit towards any cruise. They allow $1000 credit a year (About 3% benefit)
Next favorite is Southwest Airlines Visa Card good for free flights.
Have to be able to fly to Florida free for the free NCL Caribbean cruise~ The flights are also transferable.
ANYBODY can do this. It’s no secret.
Many of my clients that get 0% transfer offers say that they throw them away. I tell them to start looking at them. Some are tricky and require several purchases which screws up the rates, but it solves a small problem for some people.
People who are using debit cards are passing up free flights,cruises or other benefits.
For people that do carry a credit card balance, DISCOVER has a special offer right now which is a fixed rate of 3.9% on balance transfers for 4 years until November 2011.
Not everyone will qualify.
As far as liquid money, Countrywide Bank is still paying 5.50% on accounts with $10,000 and up, FDIC insured.