Will transfering credit card balances to a new CC with a lower APR be bad for my FICO score?

Is this practice equivalent to "debt consolidation" when it comes to credit reports?

Thanks in advance.

It will ding you a little, but not a lot.

In FICO terms, "New" credit activity isn't as good as "Old" credit activity. New credit cards aren't as good as old ones.

That said, I would do it anyway. It won't ding your score that much, and cash in your pocket is better than 10-20 points of credit any day.

If you want to estimate the effect, use the FICO score estimator, and see how big a difference a new credit card makes. (Link below).

When I use this estimator, a new card zings me for about 10 points, if everything else is the same.

It will not be bad for your FICO score, but if you have not had credit card acct. open for long and you pay it off or transfer, it does not help build your credit.

Don't be fooled. I work for credit card company. We know who transferred balances from one card to another. If you do it once or twice, you may be able to get a 0% but if you do it often, you won't be able to get that rate.

I had a nice customer who did a $50.000 balance transfer with us 6 months ago. She paid back after 3 months. Now she has an available credit of $50.000 and wants to do another transfer. Our record showing that she moves money around from one card to another. The lowest rate she can get from us is 3.99%. She wonders why she couldn't get a 0% as she did 6 months ago.

Credit card companies now is more sophisticated. They borrow money from the FED and other banks at 5.25% to loan back at 0% with the hope that you can't pay back when the promo runs out. They can't stop you to transfer the balance but other banks also have your record (we call them rate surfer). Bank is there to make money, they're not there to help you NOT to pay interest.

Everytime customer calls, first thing we look is to see if he/she is a rate surfer. We won't loan them the money at the lowest rate even if we have it. We know that other credit cards have the same info. If they do a high balance transfer (10,000 or up) then we lower the rate. Otherwise, we know they can only get the similar rate from other credit card company.

It's not the same on your credit report as debt consolidation, but it is still in effect debt consolidation, and the trouble with debt consolidation is that unless you change your habits, you have the potential to get into even bigger debt because you have the ability to run up more debt on the now cleared card.

Credit is nonsense. Stop using it.

It will keep you "tense and broke" the rest of your life.

Get a debit card.

I am always transferring my balances on my cc to new a cc with lower aprs. I have been doing that since I was 18. Let me put it to you this way. I was able to buy a home at 22 and my credit score was great. Lower aprs are great because you can pay your balances off faster and you are saving money. Just don't open to many credit cards because it will affect you getting a loan. The bank may see a lot of credit cards with no balances but to them they may view it like one day you will go out and rack up a bunch of credit. Another hint of advice before you change credit cards call you current one and threaten them that you are considering to change cards to one that offers a lower rate. Chances are they might lower the rate for you. Just keep threatening. Works every time for me.

Not really as I do it all the time to take advantage of the lower promotional interest rates offered on balance transfers. In fact, you can use it to help your credit. First, you take out about six to eight credit cards over about a two year period, more if you like, as they solicite for new customers all the time. Then don't use them past about thirty percent of the actual line of credit, if you use it more than that always pay it down each month to at least no more than thirty percent. Once you start getting the promotion offers from other credit card issuers you simple do a balance transfer from the one offering the lowest rate to pay off the one that has the highest rate, and so forth; always staying under thirty percent; certainly, never go past fifty percent. Actually, having a lot of available credit improves your credit scores as long as you always pay on time and always pay a little more than the minimum. Example: Care #1 has $30,000.00 worth of credit and you are offered a 1.99% rate for the next nine months on balance transfers. You owe $9,000.00 on three other cards, all having a $5,000. limit each. You owe $2,000. - $3,500. and $3,500. respectively on these three cards, all of which have over a thirty percent, and two having well over fifty percent used on the available line. These cards are actually hurting your credit score. By paying them all down to about $100. to $500.00, don't pay them all the way off, you will now have four cards all having balances under thirty percent, with the older three cards well below thirty percent. It acts as a debt consolidation in essence because you probably were paying in the 10 to 15 percent range on interest and maybe higher on the three cards, and now have cut your effective interest rate, including the small balances on the older three cards to about 2.5%, and didn't use over thirty percent of the new card. Now, take the savings and start paying down these three cards to a zero balance over the next couplt or three or so months. Then don't use them unless they offer a promotion or an emergency. If no emergency happens you will in essence be able to pay off the new promotion card within the next nine months, and if not, one or all of the three older cards will be offering a promotion rate to get you back. Their entire marketing effort is based on getting you to use their card, and hoping you can't pay it off or even way down during this promotion period. I do it all the time and my effective credit card interest rate averages just over 2.5% and what I'm talking about is; that the credit cards are actually making me money as inflation is over 2.5%.Therefore, I am actually paying with free dollars when you consider the time value of money. Good Luck.

A credit company will not know that unless it's reported. All they see is existing credit history and if it is in good standing. As long as you are current on both credit cards then there will be no affect. Your FICO will not change based upon your APR's. It may only look like debt consolitdation if you close the accounts after transgering the balances.

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