It seems we can’t make free money from balance transfer any longer. Most credit card issuers have terminated their zero fee introductory balance transfer offers with a transaction fee. For example, Citi Platinum Select Card,which used to offer 0% APR on purchases and balance transfers for years, all with no fees, added 3% transaction fee with $250 cap! Discover stopped their no fee balance transfer offers on all of their cards, and added $50 or $75 cap on balance transfer. It’s very clear that the sweet age is gone. However, we can still find some cards are still offering o% APR on balance transfers without transaction fees. They all are from Citi. Here I summarized the cards from Citi Cards without transaction fees and I hope you can take the last train. The following cards are offering 0% APR on balance transfer with no fees for 12 months.

Citi Professional Cash Card

Citi Professional Card with ThankYou Network (10,000 thank you point with you first purchase)

Citi professional Card (0% APR on purchase)

Citi Upromise Platinum Select MasterCard

How much can you get from Citi?
I think this is the most important question. SO I spent several hours to figure out a way to make an estimation on how much free money we can get by taking advantage of 0% APR on balance transfer. Here are some basic points I used: APY on saving or CD—5%; Start Balance—$10,000; minimum payment for each month—2% of the balance. Then how much can you get from Citi? My calculation told me that after 12 months, you can get $448.95. Other Citi cards may charge you $75 or more transaction fees. SO basically you can make a judgment on how much you can get from balance transfer. A warning is when you carry a large balance (a dramatic drop of your credit score), other credit card issuers might reduce your credit limit. And don’t forget to pay the bills, otherwise your 0% APR will be terminated by Citi.

Tips on balance transfer

1. Some friends claim that they can transfer balance to their checking accounts online from Citi professional. I don’t know. But I think is highly YMMV; 2. Use debit card to transfer balance. Although it may not succeed, it worths a try; 3. Transfer balance to another credit card and then ask for a refund check; 4. Use the balance transfer check (make sure it’s not a cash advance check) or request a balance transfer check; 5. Do balance transfer through a phone call. (this is useful when you want to pay off all or part of your car loan from your credit card)