As featured in The Wall Street Journal, Money Magazine, and more!

Balance Transfer Fees on CitiBank Credit Cards

by Flexo on March 10, 2008

in Credit

Updated May 14 to reflect additional removal of the no-fee offers.

There was a time when credit card companies offered nice balance transfer offers, so savvy manipulators could earn interest on savings obtained from credit. While being charged a 0% introductory rate by the credit card, they’d be earning 5% or so in their savings account.

With savings interest rates lowering and credit card companies losing money as some customers default and backing banks lost money on subprime investments, good balance transfer offers are harder to find.

I’ve been working on assembling a list of all the balance transfer fees offered by credit cards. It’s a large project, considering the fee is often not disclosed on the application itself. I’ll begin with the CitiBank credit cards.

CitiBank Offer: 3% of the amount of each balance transfer, minimum $5.

mtvU™ Platinum Select® Visa® Card for College Students
PremierPassSM Card – Elite Level
Dividend Platinum Select® Card

Balance transfer offers are not for the faint of heart. They can be used to earn interest on a credit balance transfered to a bank account, but credit card issuers build traps into this process.

* Don’t send a payment late. If you do, you will owe back interest and late payment fees.
* Pay your entire transfered balance off before the term of the introductory offer has ended, otherwise you will owe back interest.
* Don’t use the card for purchases; payments you make will go to your balance with the lowest interest rate first, increasing the amount of interest you’ll owe.

VN:F [1.7.4_987]
Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)


About the Author

Flexo, the owner and creator of Consumerism Commentary, has been blogging and writing for the internet since 1995 and has been building online communities since 1991. Find out more about him and follow him on Twitter.

If you enjoyed this article, get the free RSS feed or get daily emails.

Join the free Consumerism Commentary newsletter. Enter your email address here to receive weekly emails with behind-the-scenes information, exclusive giveaways, and money tips.



Related Entries on Consumerism Commentary

  • Tim
    What should be shocking to all of us is the number of 0% BT offers with no fees that are directly aimed at college students.
  • I'm deeply unimpressed with Citibank in general. It took me over a month to set up a US dollar account (I'm based in UK) and then they wouldn't send me any paying in slips till I phoned them twice. It's like they didn't want my money...
blog comments powered by Disqus

Previous post: The Carnival is Up!

Next post: Comcast Bills for Two Months of Service on First Bill