Overview

www.getmyvisa.com is a domain used by Washington Mutual for pre-approved mail offer credit cards.  In general, credit cards offered on www.getmyvisa.com, such as the ESPN Visa, offer consumers a 0% APR for 6 months on purchases and transfers and APRs ranging from 9.99% to 23.99%, based on a review of your credit. 

Getmyvisa.com Vs. Current Offers from Other Issuers

Overall, getmyvisa.com offers fare poorly when compared to current credit card offers from other issuers.  For example, Discover offers a 0% APR on purchases and balance transfers for a full year.  Other banks, such as Chase, Citi, or Bank of America, offer similar deals with a 0% APR on either purchases or balance transfers for up to 1 year.

You can compare 0% APR offers from every major credit card issuer in the credit card comparison section of Smart Balance Transfers.  Once you’ve found the best credit card deal, you can apply online for instant approval.

Should you prefer to apply for a www.getmyvisa.com offer, visit their website.

If you’ve recieved a mailing or email from Bank of America encouraging you transfer high interest balances on the website www.bankofamerica.com/easybt, you may want to think twice before completing a balance transfer.  Not only can you get a 0% APR on balance transfers from most other credit card issuers, you’ll end up paying much more money in interest and fees with the offer from www.bankofamerica.com/easybt.

First, we’ll examine the reasons this is not a great deal.  To begin, this offer charges a 3% balance transfer fee with no maximum.  A good 0% balance transfer credit card caps the maximum fee at $75.  Thus, if you accept the Bank of America offer and make a $4000 balance transfer, you would pay $120 in fees instead of $75.  But that’s just the beginning. 

Buried in the fine print of your credit card is a statement such as this, “all payments will be credited to the balance with the lowest interest rate first.”  Thus, if you have a $2000 balance on your card being charged 10% and you transfer $2000, your first $2000 in payments will reduce the lower interest transferred balance, leaving you with $2000 being charged at the 10% or higher rate.

Clearly, the easy balance transfer offer at www.bankofamerica.com/easybt  is not a great deal.  And, compared to a credit card that charges a 0% APR on balance transfers for 1 year and charges low fees, it is not even a good deal.

To maximize your savings on balance transfers, you can review current 0% APR balance transfer offers and apply online at Smart Balance Transfers.  At Smart Balance Transfers, we feature detailed information to help consumers save money on balance transfers.  To find the best money saving balance transfer deal, peruse our website, compare offers, and apply online here.

I received an email from a visitor detailing a bad balance transfer situation that she wanted me to share with other visitors. The visitor received a mail offer from her current credit card company offering her a 0% APR on balance transfers for 1 year. When she received the offer, she had a $5000 balance with the company extending the 0% offer and a $3000 balance with another company. Hoping she could save some money and consolidate her payments, the visitor initiated the balance transfer. That’s where the problems began.

First, she was charged a $75 balance transfer fee. If you’ve been here before, you know I strongly recommend no fee balance transfer credit cards. However, the $75 in balance transfer fees was only the tip of the iceberg. When the visitor made payments to her consolidated credit card bill, she was surprised to find out that every dollar she paid reduced the portion of her debt being charged 0% interest, not the balance being charged 14%. Fortunately, she realized this nasty credit card trick after only a few statements.

After finding my site on Google, she applied for a no fee balance transfer card and sent me an email asking that I share her story with my visitors. I was more than happy to oblige as this highlights one of the nastiest little tricks in the credit card industry. Buried in the fine print of just about every credit card’s terms and conditions will be a statement such as this: every payment will be applied to the balance with the lowest interest rate. In a nutshell, this means that if you have a balance on your credit card and you are offered a 0% balance transfer deal, you’re best off putting it in the shredder and consolidating your credit balances on a new 0% APR credit card that charges no balance transfer fees.

Another day and another credit card offer arrives in the mail. This one came from Discover and included the application url www.mydiscovercard.com. This offer was pretty good, as I find Discover offers to be some of the best balance transfer credit card deals on the market. ( You can review all 0% Discover balance transfer offers in that section of Smart Balance Transfers.)

Like many of the other mail offers I’ve recently written about, the www.mydiscovercard.com offer provided a 0% interest rate on balance transfers and purchases for 1 year, followed by an APR of as little as 10.99%. While this offer did have a 3% balance transfer fee, the maximum was the greater of 3% or $75. However, the bulk of this fee was offset by an offer to get $40 cashback if you spent $500 in the next three months.

What I like about the www.mydiscovercard.com offer, even though it charges a balance transfer fee, is that it offers a 0% APR on purchases and balance transfer for a full year. This option enables people to take an interest holiday and put the money that would have otherwise gone to the credit card company towards paying down existing debt.

Overall, I rate the www.mydiscovercard.com offer very highly. However, before applying on that website, you can compare all Discover credit cards on this website, choose the one you like best and apply online for fast approval.

Yesterday’s mail brought an offer for the Fidelity Investment Rewards Visa from FIA Card Services. Like many mail offers, this credit card offered a special 0% introductory APR for cash advance checks and balance transfers. The online url for the Fidelity offer was www.newcardonline.com, which is used for a number of Bank of America credit card mail offers. What separates this particular mail offer from most that offer cash advance checks is the fact that its actually a good deal. Yes, a cash advance credit card offer is actually good.

I reviewed the application at www.newcardonline.com and found that the interest rate on both cash advances and balance transfers was 0% for 1 year, and then only 14.99% thereafter. While 14.99% is not the greatest APR available, it is very low for cash advances.

There was a slight catch. If you used an ATM to make a cash advance, the cash advance rate would be 24.99%, or nearly twice that of the cash advance checks. So if you accept this offer, be sure to use the cash advance checks, and not the ATM.

As far as cash advance credit cards go, this one is pretty good. As to balance transfers, this is not the best offer in the world. In fact, it is not very good at all. As usual, I searched out the balance transfer fee information in the fine print. And what I found actually surprised me. The fine print stated, “Balance transfers are subject to transaction fees in the amount of 3% of the transaction (min $10).” What’s missing from this disclosure? The maximum fee. Or, in other words, there is no cap on the fees you can be charged for a balance transfer. (The majority of credit cards cap balance transfer fees at $75).

So how does this newcardonline.com offer differ from a standard balance transfer offer. Let’s say you’re making a $10,000 balance transfer. With a standard 0% APR balance transfer credit card, you would spend $75 on balance transfer fees. With this offer, the same balance transfer would cost $300. That’s quite a difference.

Overall, the Fidelity Investment Rewards Visa is a great deal for a 0% APR cash advance, and a bad deal for transferring large balances. You can compare a complete listing of 0% APR balance transfer credit cards with low fees in the 0% APR section of SmartBalanceTransfers.com.

Capital One floods more mailboxes than any other credit card issuer with offers from www.mycapitalonecard.com. Each offer varies based on the information they have about you. For example, someone with a limited credit history may receive an offer to apply online at www.mycapitalonecard.com for a credit card with a $300 credit limit. Individuals with good to excellent credit may get a mycapitalonecard.com offer like the one I was shown.

NOTE:  Many people will get a better credit card by using the Capital One Card Lab instead of responding to a mail offer.  With the Card Lab, you can choose to get a 0% rate on purchases and balance transfers, a low apr, or rewards.

Now, the offer I recieved from mycapitalonecard.com advertised a no fee balance transfer with a fixed APR. That would be great, except the no fee balance transfer had a fixed APR of over 16%. I put the mycapitalonecard.com no fee balance transfer offer in the shredder.

As I’ve said before, no fee balance transfers are good deals if you transfer your balance and don’t use the card for anything else. However, if you’re looking for a no fee balance transfer credit card, get one that offers a 0% APR for 1 year. If you can’t get approved for a fee-free card, get a 0% APR credit card that charges no interest on both purchases and balance transfers.

A few hours after I put the final period on my last post about balancetransfer.citicards.com, I received an email from Citibank enticing me use my balance transfer opportunity to, “Pay off high-rate creditors, Consolidate your bills for one easy monthly payment, Pay for unexpected expenses, such as home improvements, medical expenses, or anything else you need, or Plan your holidays early this year.”

Since I’ve already gone over how this offer can actually cost you much more money than it could save you, I just want to point out the funny part. The list above is followed by this call to action, “It’s fast and secure, no need to delay! The more you transfer, the more you may save on interest. Transfer your balances online today at http://balancetransfer.citicards.com.”

No disclaimer. No disclosure. No mention of 3% balance transfer and cash advance fees. No mention of the 22% cash advance interest rate. Just a warm reminder from your good friends at the credit card company to take advantage of their benevolent generosity.

Because I received this via email, I unfortunately cannot put this fine offer in the shredder. However, that’s where this offer belongs.

I recently posted about a credit card trick where a company offers you a low rate balance transfer offer, but buries the fact that all your payments are credited to the balance on your credit card with the lowest interest rate. Essentially, this would mean that if you had $1,000 in purchases being charged 15%, then transferred $1000 to a low fixed rate, a payment of $1000 would pay off the low fixed rate balance, but leave you with $1000 at the higher interest rate.

I recently received an offer in the mail enticing me to use attached checks or visit balancetransfer.citicards.com to take advantage of a 0% APR on balance transfers until May 1st of 2008, about 6 months, or a 6.99% APR on balance transfers until February of 2009, slightly over a year.

On the surface, the offer seems good. But was I tempted to visit balancetransfer.citicards.com or start writing checks? Of course not. First off, the 0% offer for 6 months is about half the duration of most current 0% APR balance transfer offers. Secondly, when you add in the 3% balance transfer fee, the 6.99% rate essentially becomes a 10% interest rate. Why transfer a balance to a high rate like this when there are plenty of credit cards that offer fixed APR balance transfers for life at 4.99%? There quite simply is no reason.

And as to the credit card checks. Well, there’s always a rub. Such as the asterisk which states there is a 3% cash advance fee for using the check with a minimum fee of $5. Or the fact that the APR for cash advances is 23.24%. Needless to say, those checks went straight to the shredder.

If you get a similar offer, you might want to consider doing the same. Unless, of course, you don’t have a shredder. In that case, I suggest burning them and applying for a good old fashioned 0% APR balance transfer credit card, such as those listed on Smart Balance Transfers.

For my first post, I figured I’d exposed one of the more atrocious tricks credit card companies play: offering a fixed APR or 0% APR balance transfer to a customer who has a balance on their card.

Here’s how the trick works. We’ll assume we’ve got a $2000 balance on credit card one getting charged 15% interest and another $2000 on credit card two at the same rate. A mail offer from credit card company one offers you a fixed 4.99% APR for life on balance transfers. On the surface, it looks like a good deal: we can reduce our interest rate by 2/3. However, there’s some nasty trickery just below the surface.

First, we’ll start with the fees. 99% of credit cards charge a 3% balance transfer fee. So, to transfer $2000 from card two, it’ll cost $60 upfront. Now, that’s not a terrible deal, since the higher interest rate would have cost us $200 more in interest over the course of the year ($140 when you factor in the fee). However, once the balance is transferred, the real trickery begins.

If you look at the fine print of the 30 page disclosures pamphlet credit card companies are required to send you every time they make a change to their terms and conditions, you’ll discover that any time you make a payment, the payment will be credited towards the balance on your credit card with the LOWEST INTEREST RATE. When we transferred our balance to the low fixed rate, we agreed that all our payments will reduce the balance being charged 4.99% interest.

What does this mean? Well, let’s say we decide to pay off $2000 of our debt. We’ve just eliminated the entire low APR balance and now have $2000 of debt being charged 15% interest. Not only are we right back where we started, we’ve wasted $60 in balance transfer fees.

Is this practice atrocious? Yes. Detestable? Clearly. Legal? 100%. Avoidable? Now it is.