Has the credit crunch made it impossible to do credit card balance transfers?
Banks are being a little tighter with the amount of the credit line they’ll give you, and some have tightened approval standards somewhat, although not dramatically, but if they’re offering you a BT and you have a card, you can definitely use it. If you only have one card, little history, and near 100% use of your credit line, you might find it difficult to get approved if you don’t already have a card in hand you want to balance transfer to. Don’t follow Eekacat’s advice about closing your original card, though. The age of the trade line and the unused available credit will help your score and offset the (possibly) high balance on the new card. Closing lines is silly unless you either have a mortgage broker breathing down your neck to close some so you can get a better rate on a home loan, you are paying an annual fee on the account, or you have no self control and will otherwise run up a balance. If you give creditboards.com a read, you can get an idea of how the banks are behaving r
Personal credit like this isn’t as hard hit as the media might let you think. I get these offers almost daily in the mail, though I’m not really in your same position. The thing that concerns me about your situation is that you seem to be looking for further credit, when you’re not currently paying down your bill, nor living within your means. Getting a better rate is always good, no doubt, but transferring credit so you can accrue more debt is bad. I would suggest taking a holistic approach to this and make it a part of a larger plan to eliminate your debt. If you transfer your debt to a lower interest card, I’d eliminate the original card, and figure out how to live within your means. Transferring your debt is a good trick as a part of that approach, but without taking a serious approach towards cutting out the debt, you can end up in a deeper hole. Certainly doable, but check the fine print as was mentioned, and see what the transfer fees are. Also, a lot of cards will revert to a m
The thing that concerns me about your situation is that you seem to be looking for further credit, when you’re not currently paying down your bill, nor living within your means. Well, by way of clarification . . . the point of doing the balance transfer is to allow me to pay off more of the balance without my payment being eaten up by interest charges. Not to rack up a whole bunch of extra charges. Anyway, thanks for all of your responses and your advice. I appreciate it!
