One Credit Card Company, Three Cards, Three Different BT Offers

Posted by Sun on November 19, 2006
Post viewed 248 times, 2 so far today

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I have four credit cards from Chase: PerfectCard, Rewards, Sony (from Bank one), and Amazon. Except the Amazon card, all the other three sent me balance transfer offers almost every month and I never hesitated to write myself a convenient check and deposit the money into my bank when the terms were right: 0% APR with a fee cap. So far the highest fee I paid was $75. Though the loan is totally free, $75 is an acceptable price to pay, even for only 6 months.

Yesterday, a BT offer letter from each of the three cards was again in my mailbox. This time the offers were not that appealing: 0.99% till May 1st, 2007. Still low, but not exactly I like. When I was just about to feed my shredder with the checks, I took a look at the fine print. Interestingly, I found the following:

Sony

"A transaction fee of 3% (minimum $5; maximum $75) of the amount of the check applies for each check in this offer."

Rewards

"A transaction fee of 3% (minimum $5; maximum $99) of the amount of the check applies for each check in this offer."

PerfectCard

"A transaction fee of 3% (minimum $5) of the amount of the check applies for each check in this offer."

Except the name of the card, the account number and limit, the three letters are identical, even the check numbers are in sequential order through a total of 15 checks. Yet, they still managed to make a slight difference on the fees for each card. I wonder how they determine what kind of rates/fees to offer. Randomly? It's not based on my payment or credit history for sure.

Then what is it?

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2 Comments

November 19, 2006

Generally, the offers are based on market conditions (what their competitors are doing) and what they have as your credit information the last time they pulled it. If your credit is better now than it was before (and you’re not worried about the very slight negative effect of a hard credit pull), request a credit limit increase. That way, they’ll see your credit is better and likely give you better offers.

Posted by Trent

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