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The Citi Professional Card used to be a very popular credit card which offers 15,000 bonus thankyou points after approval. Now this credit card no longer offers 15,000 bonus points. Today after a little bit search on the internet (via Google), I discovered a link pointed to the Citi Professional Card application which offers 15,000 bonus thankyou points.

The link to the application page is here. You go through the normal application procedures and wait for the approval. Please make sure you save the application page with bonus information. (I can not guarantee that Citi will honor this bonus but it is worth trying.) You have to make a purchase to get the bonus. According to the application page, you can also get 0% APR on balance transfer for 12 months.

The 15,000 thankyou points can be redeemed at thankyou.com ($135 gift card).

This is a credit card tip but not credit card news (not official).

I just introduced the best credit card offers from Kiplinger.com. As I indicated in the post, the best credit card means you should find one credit card that fits your spending styles. If you are short of some cash and want to use a credit card to consolidate your credit card balances, the Associated Bank Platinum Credit Card is a good choice for you.

This credit card features 0% APR on balance transfer for up to 12 months. Plus there is no balance transaction fees associated with the balance transaction. Note that the 5% transaction fee is typical right now in the credit card industry. This is a no-annual-fee credit card.

The details of this credit card can be found here. This credit card is actually issued and maintained by Citi. After you click the “Apply Now” button, you can go to Citi website to apply for this credit card. But it seems Citi hided this credit card from its website.

As indicated on its own website, this credit card is aimed to save money for you. So you can feel free to apply for this credit card and do balance transfer with it.

• You can consolidate your higher-rate balances with a low, promotional rate on Balance Transfers for the first 12 months.
• No Annual Fee and no Balance transfer fees with the offer described above.

Another feature I want to mention is the APR for purchase is only 7.99%. This is a really low rate if you are carrying balances. This credit card also provides Free Personalized Checks. Use your free supply of  personalized checks to make purchases, get extra cash or transfer balances. You can even use your personalized checks where credit cards are not accepted.

0% APR on Balance Transfer without balance transfer fees is a really great deal during current finance situation. You can also deposit those money to high interest savings accounts or CDs.

Associated Bank is the 41st largest bank holding company in the United States.

I have many posts about how to profit from credit cards. I mention a lot about the sign up bonus opportunities here at mycardblog.com. But I actually miss a lot about how to profit from credit card balance transfer offers. The primary reason why I don’t mention a lot of credit card balance transfer is different credit card issuers will target to different credit card members. Thus different people might qualify for different balance transfer offers. The credit card balance transfer is not so easy for many new to credit card game. I have a series of posts on how to do balance transfer.

But I’m still receiving some emails inquiring the credit card balance transfers. Some readers are keeping receiving the balance transfer offers from credit card issuers. And they don’t know how to deal with them? jump or not jump? Profitable or not profitable? This post: Win A Balance Transfer Game is kind of a brief guide to the balance transfer game.

What’s credit card balance transfer?

A balance transfer is the act of transferring balance from one credit card, usually with high interest rate, to another credit card which is supposed to have better terms and rates. When you receive a balance transfer offer, you will be informed with the following items: offer rate, offer duration, and transaction fee. Please be noted that when you have many items with different interest rates on your credit card statement, usually your payments will be applied to lowest-rate balances first and highest-rate last.

Why are you receiving balance transfer offers?

Credit card merket is very competitive today and is a big business. Credit card companies are making a lot of profit from finance charges. The national average APR on credit card is about ~15% which is significantly higher than any other financial products. With that kind of interest, it’s tough to pay down a credit card, because it is consistently charging interest and adding to the principle. Unfortunately, it’s normal for American households with credit card debt to carry balances of $10,000 or more on credit cards. A typical family has to pay more than $1,000 in interest charges on credit cards each year. This is much more profitable than the transaction fees. In an effort to lure consumers to their credit card, many companies offer balance transfer offers to your credit card. And you might become one of the money machines for them in the near future.

Would the balance transfer work for you?

Balance transfer credit cards are very popular credit cards. It can be an emergency fund for you if you are short of cash for a while. Or it can give you some profit from the interest rate difference between a high rate savings account and you credit card offer. For a savvy consumer, this can be an excellent method to reduce credit card debt.

Looks good but you have to watch out……

You should always bear in mind that credit card companies aren’t making these offers out of the goodness of their hearts. They are gambling that they’ll win. They are wait for you to fail to pay off your balance or neglect to switch your balance to another credit card before the grace period is up. So to win the balance transfer game, diligence is required. You also have to read carefully about the fine print.

You should be shopping for the following features:

Low interest rate offers: A 1% APR will cost you a lot of money in a 1 year period if you carry a lot of balances. Some credit cards come with 0% APR promotion with short duration time (3~6 months). You should consider a step ahead before you jump for it.

Low transaction fees: Today’s balance transfer offers always come with a 3% transaction fee. Some with a cap some don’t. You should read carefully about the offer before you use the balance transfer checks. The American Express Blue and Blue Cash Card offer great 4.99% fixed interest rate without any transaction fees. If you are short of money, they are good choices.

Annual fees: Of course, you want a credit card without any annual fees.

Sign-up bonus/other rewards: Well, this is a great additive for me to jump the offer. The Citi Dividend Platinum Select Card and Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Card are offering balance transfer bonus for making a balance transfer larger than $1000.

At last, as a kind reminder, please don’t forget to minimum balance to your credit card every month. Pay late only once and you will fall into the debt hell.

They are not offering sign-up bonus. However, they are just perfect cards for those who need money. Blue from American Express is offering 0% APR on purchase for up to 15 months. Blue Cash/Blue Cash Business from American Express is offering 0% APR on purchase for 6 months. Another feature is they offer 4.99% fixed APR on balance transfer for the life of the balance! That the reason why I want to write a post about them. The fixed 4.99% APR for the life of the balance is just perfect for those who need money. For example, if you can’t get a better auto loan than 4.99%, you might think about this offer. At the same time, if you buy a car with auto loan, you have to pay premium auto insurance which will be a huge amount compared to the liability only insurance. So if you know how to use balance transfer, you can save a lot of money. Of course you can use the balance transfer offer to pay off other credit card balances or loans with higher interest rate. Don’t forget the balance transfer length is for the life of the balance! You don’t have to worry when you can pay the balance off as long as you can pay the minimum every month. 4.99% is already a very low rate for a loan not to mention the “for the life of the balance” feature.

How to take money out of the credit card via balance transfer?

Well, although officially you can’t get money/cash out of credit card through balance transfer, there are many direct or indirect ways to put them into your bank account.

Most credit card issuers will send you some checks with new card. Or Citi will even allow you to get a balance transfer check online! However, you should read carefully with the associated checks. Cash advance? You can also call the card issuer to confirm what you can do with the checks. I can deposit the checks from WaMu directly to my checking account with the checks received along with my new WaMu card. I call them up and confirmed that I can do this. I also wrote down the ID of the customer service representative.

Another way to do balance transfer is to transfer the balance to another credit card (This card doesn’t have to carry balance.). For example, you have new card A with balance transfer offer, and another card B. You can request to transfer balance from A to B. Once your request gets approved, you can see the balance on card B is negative. Then just go ahead and request a balance refund check from card B. You can deposit the check to you personal account. Again, Citi is most friendly with credit refund!

I have a special page about high rate saving accounts. You may check out there to find one for you to earn free money.

If you need money and don’t know where to find low rate loans, the balance transfer offer from the above mentioned cards might be worth considering.

Ok. The next job is to manage your credit card account. You should be careful that if you miss one payment, your default APR will be applied. In another way, you lose the promotional 0% APR offer if you miss one payment.

You have to pay the credit card minimum payment on time every month. Basically, you can do this either by pushing the money via check or online billpay to credit card account, or by having credit card account pull money from your bank account.

Usually what people do is to send the credit card issuer a check once you receive the monthly bill. It’s OK in most instances.

Another way is to use your online billpay at your bank account. Believe this is a very basic service that any bank should provide. It’s free and must be free. The process is very simple. You have to add a payee in your bank account, enter the address of the payee and then put your account number there. Once you finish the registration process, you are ready to go. Every month you can simply add the amount you need to pay, and then schedule the payment date. The bank will handle everything for you. This is what I’m doing right now. You can also use the repeating/recurring payment service from your bank. I know Chase and National City bank offer such kind of service. You just have to set a scheduled amount at the very beginning, and then the bank will send a payment to the payee every month. Since the first minimum payment will be largest minimum payment, you can send a same amount for the following months. You are all set! (I strongly recommend using the repeating/recurring payment service.)

You can also pay the minimum balance from your credit card account. You can set up your payment method online. And then connect a bank account to your credit card account. In this way, you can schedule a payment online.

Anyway, current financial services are much better than before. Please make sure you won’t miss a payment.

The purpose of this series is to let you know how to make money by taking advantage of balance transfer offers. I can foresee that the balance transfer offers without any charges will be no longer available soon. If you want to take a try, please hurry up.

OK, this is the third post about making money off of other people’s money. Sure, we are still getting $100 or more for sign-up bonus. That’s the easiest way to earn money from banks, and we are all doing this. However, by taking advantage of balance transfer, you can make more, just more, from a single credit card.

The previous post is about how to distinguish whether a credit card provides good balance transfer offer. A good balance transfer offer should have three major features:

1). 0% APR Balance transfer length should be longer than 9 months;

2). 0 balance transfer fee is best. However, due to the reported loss of most major US banks, we seldom see 0 fees offers these days. Usually they will charge 3% of your transferred balance, and some are with capped amount like $75 or $99. You should read carefully with the terms & conditions. Usually $75 is acceptable. (Bank of America is charging 3% with unlimited caps.)

3). 0 annual fees, at least first year should be free.

Hare are some cards I would recommend if you want to have a try. (Maybe you will receive good balance transfer offers from credit card issuers. Those targeted offers are not considered here.)

Discover More Card

Miles Card by Discover

Citi Professional Cash Card

Citi Professional Card with ThankYou Network

Citi Professional Card (0% APR on purchase)

Citi Upromise Platinum Select MasterCard

Chase offers some 0% APR for 6 months with capped $99 fee. Personally, I don’t think is a good deal. If you need cash immediately, you can find more at Chase.Com.

Application process: All you have to do is to find out your favorite card and then submit application as usual. Maybe they will ask you whether transfer balance to another credit card. If you don’t know how to do this, you can leave it blank. You can do this later on in your online account. Or, if you do know how to use another card to do balance transfer, you can put an amount there. They won’t reject your application for asking too much. For example, if you ask to transfer $20,000 to another card and the issued credit limit is only $10,000, the card issuer will transfer the balance according to you credit limit.

Once your application is approved, what should you do next?

The answer is how to transfer the available credit to your high rate saving or CD accounts.

Most credit card issuers will send you some checks with new card. Or Citi will even allow you to get a balance transfer check online! However, you should read carefully with the associated checks. Cash advance? You can also call the card issuer to confirm what you can do with the checks. I can deposit the checks from WaMu directly to my checking account with the checks received along with my new WaMu card. I call them up and confirmed that I can do this. I also wrote down the ID of the customer service representative.

Another way to do balance transfer is to transfer the balance to another credit card (This card doesn’t have to carry balance.). For example, you have new card A with balance transfer offer, and another card B. You can request to transfer balance from A to B. Once your request gets approved, you can see the balance on card B is negative. Then just go ahead and request a balance refund check from card B. You can deposit the check to you personal account. Again, Citi is most friendly with credit refund!

I have a special page about high rate saving accounts. You may check out there to find one for you to earn free money.

Ok. If you are not categorized as one of four types of people, you are ready to proceed to prepare for playing the balance transfer game. Here are some definitions:

Balance transfer is the act of transferring debt from one credit card to another assuming the newer card has better terms and rates. According to the definition, you can only do balance transfer between credit card accounts. However, there are many direct and indirect ways to put money into your saving/CD account. So, technically, you can use balance transfer to get cash.

Cash advance is a cash loan drawn from the available credit of your credit card account. (You can get cash from an ATM or cash advance check sent by the credit card issuer.) Usually there is no grace period for cash advances. Interest accrues daily until the complete balance is paid in full. Transaction fees may apply.

Double Billing also known as two-cycle billing. Finance charges are calculated on the balance you hold over the two previous months, rather than on the average daily balance for one month.

Finance Charge is interest and other fees applied against purchases, balance transfers and cash advances. Unless the issuer has a grace period, finance charges are accrued until the credit card debt is paid off.

Minimum Payment is, to not default, the minimum amount the cardholder is required to pay.

It’s important to remember the definitions of the above terms as you need to read carefully about the fine print of your credit card agreement. Once you submit your application, you’re supposed to accept the terms and conditions issued by the bank. All the information you need to evaluate the balance transfer offers can be found at terms and conditions.

Let’s take a look at the perfect Citi professional card. You can find the following features in the terms and conditions:

Annual fees: none

APR for purchases: 13.24% variable

Balance transfer APR: As long as balance transfers are completed within 9 months from date of account opening, 0.00% for 9 months from date of first balance transfer. After that same as for purchases.

Cash advance APR: 22.24% variable.

Default APR: 31.24% variable.

Balance transfer fee: 3% of each balance transfer; $5 minimum, $50 maximum. There is no fee with the 0.00% APR balance transfer offer described above.

You can see the screenshot:

This card is currently offering $15,000 ThankYou Points after first purchase. Meanwhile this card is also offering 0% APR on balance transfer for 9 months without any balance transfer fees. Can you imagine how much you can get from this card by combining sign-up bonus and earning from balance transfer?

All major US banks are reporting loss this year. Most banks are not offering 0 fee balance transfer offers. For example, Bank of America is charging 3% balance transfer fees for all balance transfer requests without limit! It’s really hard to find out balance transfer deals these days. My next post is to list the best balance transfer cards.

I have lots of emails in my inbox about how to take advantage of the 0% APR on balance transfer from their new credit cards. Some are really curious about how to make extra money from 0% APR balance transfer. Here I will start to write a series of posts about how to make extra money by taking advantage of the 0% APR balance transfer offers from credit card issuers.

I believe most of us have already known how to get sign-up bonuses, how to maximum your cash back/rewards by selectively and wisely use your credit cards combination. However, some of us may be not familiar with the balance transfer and not know how to earn money from it. My post “Earn free Money from Citi” turned out to be one of the most popular posts in this blog. I don’t have enough time to reply each email. Instead, I’d like to write some more detailed stories about balance transfer.

Why do the credit card issuers give you 0% APR balance transfer offers? Of course, their purpose is not to let you earn interest from high rate saving accounts or CDs. As a matter of fact, they want you to pay down debts with high interest rates-auto loans, credit card balances, personal loans, payday loans and home-equity loans. Usually the 0% APR is time limited. For example, most of 0% APR offers will expire in 12 months. After that, if you can’t pay off all your balance on that card, you have to pay the regular interest rate (usually between 14% and 20%). This is an evil tactics used by credit card issuers. They want you to use the 0% APR offer; meanwhile they hope you can’t pay off the balance before the due date.

However, what if you don’t have any debt? Well, you can get extra money from high interest rate saving accounts or CDs by transferring your balance to those accounts. If you can take $10,000 from your credit card, you will end up with $10,500 after 12 months, and then put $10,000 back to your credit card account. It’s radically simple! You’re using one bank’s money to earn money from another bank. You don’t need to use one penny of your own money.

As I mentioned above, you have to pay regular interest if you can’t pay off the balance in time. The credit card issuers aren’t stupid. They are high profitable institutes. They know how to earn profits from their customers. You can’t be too careful about playing money games with them. People with the following

People always forget to pay bills.

It’s very simple. If you can’t pay bills in time, credit card companies will charge late fees and will also terminate the 0% APR offer. You have to pay regular rate. If your late payment exceeds 30 dates, your credit report will get hit by a late payment. Sometime, other banks will also close the accounts without notifying you first.

People need to use credit soon.

If you’re preparing for a mortgage, car loan or other kinds of loans, you’d better don’t play the game. A huge balance on your credit report will definitely lower your credit score. In this case, you can’t get a good rate for your new mortgage or loan. Or maybe you can’t get a loan. Please also remember that even you have paid off your balance, you have to wait for a bout 2 months until the payment appears on our credit report.

People have bad credit and limited credit history.

Of course, if you can’t get a good credit score, you can’t get a good offer from credit card companies. And you can’t get a high credit limit to maximum your earning.

People carry balance regularly.

If you carry credit card balance regularly, you might be not able to pay off the credit card balance before due date. If this is real, you have to pay tons of money. For example, $10,000 will generate more than $1,000 interest with regular interest rate. If you need cash immediately, you can find other financial products. Borrow money from credit card companies is a not wise decision.