Another thing to note, when you get a good rate on a "transfer balance" that rate often only applies to the transfered balances and everything else you might put on there after you get the card goes on at a higher interest rate. Then, you are forced to pay off the higher rate balance BEFORE you get to the principle of the lower rate balance. It's a tricky ploy that credit card companies use but don't often advertise. Bottom line BE CAREFUL!!!

 

Yup, always best to keep your oldest card active. Even if you don't use it.

Canceling long standing accounts looks REALLY bad on credit reports (You'll take a 40 point FICA hit easy).

 

Thanks for all your advice guys. Here's a few points:

I have NO balance currently on this card. Believe it or not, I paid for college with this card and thats when the finance rate was 18%. Somehow paid it off too. lol.

The CSR has guaranteed me that the rate for the balance tranfers is for the life of the balance.

Even though my new "new purchase" rate is now only 4.9%, I have NO plans on using this card again if I use it for the Mini.

I do all my banking online so I pretty much CAN'T miss a payment. No worries there.

Anyway, I've got a couple of weeks to figure this out. It's basically a savings of more or less $3,000. So gonna have a glass of Jack and stare at my calculator for a bit longer...

See below for a pic of the offer they've made me:

 

3% transaction fee? so, $600 penalty plus the compounded interest. Sorry, you'd be making a bad move by using that

 

3% but a maximum of $75. Already confirmed that with them. lol.

 

NYCrooner - I would go for this offer, especially since you can have them deposit the money in your bank account! You don't even have to have another loan balance to "pay off".

 

Call back in and ask for a manager - I'll bet that he/she can wave that $75 charge too. Just confirm that you can use it to pay for the car loan like you plan. Even if you don't go with this - do NOT cancel that card.

It's counter-intuitive but canceling a long-standing card is super bad for your credit. No matter what you do - always pay them on time - even if it's just the minimum. And if you have a few cards that you normally don't use - use them just a little bit each quarter.

 

keep the card, but dont buy your car with it. I know a girl who did that, didnt go well in the end for her.

Next dont use the bmw loan either go with penfed credit union, 4.25%apr for 72 months . Do a search on here there are alot of guys who have used them and said they were happy with the service they recieved just a 20 dollar enrollment I believe.

That will be the route that I use to finance my mini.

 

I payed the $20 to join PenFed and financed for 72 months @ 4.25%.

Credit card companies are the agents of the devil and I would be really surprised if they didn't find some way to screw you at some point.

 

The problem here is that this is on BALANCE TRANSFERS. You gotta get the cost of the car on up to 4 credit cards first. Then you can pay all those balances off with this credit card. And my dealer will only let me put $5000 on my Discover (rackin up that cash back). The reason that dealers do this is because they have to pay a fee to the bank/credit card companies of from 1.25% to 3% of the transaction.

But that text - put the money into your account and use as you like.... Might be some room there to make this work. But it wouldn't surprise me if they will only give you cash in the amounts equal to your other card balances.

I guess my point is that from the bank's point of view, I don't want to let you have the opportunity to overnight double your debt load. The bank wants you to slowly work your way into the debt so that you reach the highest debt load you can support via minimum payments. Balance transfers allow that because it's just stealing already existing debt, not creating new debt.

 

There are no free lunches in America.Q

 

If someone owes 20k and cannot make the minimum payment of 4% they are already in trouble. The law is designed to make people wake up and realize they are acually going to need to pay back credit card charges before a balance reaches anywhere near 20k.

 

Another interesting possible detail on the transfer fee.
I did a similar thing, but on a much smaller scale. I bought my used pickup truck with a credit card "check". Guaranteed rate for life of loan, etc.. Yes all the late payment issues everyone talks about where there. But like you I had an automatic payment setup from my checking, no worries there. However, the variable "high" standard rate applied to the $75 transfer fee. And it keeps accumulating while you're paying off the balance. That can get rather high in 6 years. Just check that possiblity out too. Paid it off with my tax refund though from '06.