0% Credit Cards: No Interest Purchases & Balance Transfers Offers
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0% credit cards are all the rage these days and this list will help you identify the best deals out there. Consumer spending is down, fears of a recession are up, and retailers are scrambling to entice regular people like you and me to enter their stores and buy more stuff. One group of companies you’ll also find lining up to offer you special offers is the credit card industry. Credit card companies don’t necessarily want you to go into debt to them, though that doesn’t hurt their bottom line. They want you to keep on spending because they earn money on processing transactions. If you review the annual statements of any credit card issuer, most of the income they derive from credit cards comes in the form of data processing and service fees. So, in order to keep spending up as long as possible, more and more are offering great offers such as 0% APY for 12 months on purchases and balance transfers.
One word of caution – while these offers are enticing, I think that you should reserve 0% APY on purchases credit cards for items you know you can pay for within the terms of the 0% offer. Don’t get into a debt you can’t repay because it’s a very slippery slope.
0% Credit Cards
BookmarkBelow is a list of cards that will give you either 0% on purchases for 12 months and then a list of cards that will give you a 0% on balance transfers for 12 months. Remember to read all the fine print regarding fees for those cards because they are subject to change, I’ll try to stay on top of them and keep these lists accurate but I’m only one person.
If a card offers both, it’s listed on both lists and individuals can apply for cards listed as “business.”
0% On Purchases Credit Cards
- Discover Platinum American Flag Card – 6 month
- Discover Platinum Clear Card – 6 month
- Discover Platinum Card Sea Life Collection – 6 month
- Discover Platinum Card – 6 month
- Discover Platinum Gas Card – 6 months
- Discover Platinum Wildlife Card – 6 months
- Discover Miles Card – 6 months
- Discover Monogram Card – 6 month
- Escape by Discover – 6 month
- Citi Platinum Select MasterCard – up to 12 months
- Citi Forward
0% On Balance Transfers Credit Cards
Many of the cards below have a 3% balance transfer fee and some of them have a cap on how high the fee will be. I can’t keep up with the changing card terms so the only thing I can guarantee I’ll monitor closely is whether they continue to offer a 0% balance transfer. If they stop offering a 0% balance transfer, I’ll pull it from the list. Finally, if you do get a card, remember to request a balance transfer and not “cash,” because they will try to give you a cash advance which won’t be 0%!
- Discover Platinum American Flag Card
- Discover Platinum Clear Card
- Discover Platinum Card Sea Life Collection
- Discover Platinum Card
- Discover Platinum Gas Card
- Discover Platinum Wildlife Card
- Discover Miles Card
- Discover Monogram Card
- Escape by Discover
- Citi Platinum Select Card – up to 12 months
- Citi Forward
Now go out and stimulate that economy!
(Photo by crocidillicus)
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Do any of the 0% balance transfer offers have a cap on the fee, the ones I clicked on all had a 3% fee and no mention of a cap. The last time I did one the fee was capped at $75, but I know the card companies were moving away from that. Do you know?
I’m afraid I haven’t checked, I know that Discover used to cap the fee.
I’m surprised that CC companies are still offering 0% interest transfers given that credit card defaults are likely the next financial catastrophe. It seems we aren’t learning from the credit excesses yet
This is a great resource for balance transfer offers. BTs can be a great tool to lower overall interest costs, but they have a dark side by providing a false sense of financial security during the zero percent period. In order to have these offers work to your advantage, you should be sure to have a solid plan to get out of debt in place and make consistent payments to your debt accounts to reduce balances during the low-interest period. Without a plan and adequate tracking, it’s possible to make your situation considerably worse. We have a user who started with 11 cards and approximately $120K in credit card debt who played the BT game. Because she wasn’t tracking her balances, she ended up with 16 cards and and additional $20K in debt after just a year. In her case, she never set up a plan to use these offers to reduce her debt and is now getting hit hard as her intro rates have expired.
I played the Bt game for over 25 years. The trick is not the 0% rates but low APR rates for the life of the payoff without any fees attached. I ended up with about 10 cards and my highest APR was 3.99%. I was able to keep it up by paying the min due plus the finance charge each month. After 25 years, I accumuated over $70,000.00 in debt. Last March I took a withdrawal from from my 401k (I am over 59 1/2 yrs old) and paid off all my debt. I do not suggest the BT game for everyone because it can get away from you very fast.
Just got info. in the mail today that stated rates on Advanta Business Cards are going up to 37.18% in Jan. I couldn’t believe the rate, so I called & spoke directly w/a Rep. myself. She confirmed the pamphlet that I recvd. was in fact correct & that it was across the board, not just on our particular acct. BEWARE!!
Jim, we need an update!!! Where are the 0% balance transfers with a cap fee???? Thanks!
Unfortunately, there aren’t any offers out there.
Credit card offers simply aren’t very good anymore because of the economy.
American Express TrueEarnings Credit Card offers a 0% APR balance transfer – for 3 months – and the fee is a flat fee of $35 for amounts over $400, as of April 2, 2009
P.S. You need to be a CostCo member to apply.
I think an often overlooked benefit to the 0% on Purchases CC offer is the set of “checks” that you receive along with your shiny new card.
Around Sept 2008, we applied for a Chase MasterCard that boasted 0% on Balance Transfers and Purchases through October 2009. At this point we had already been sticking to our debt repayment plan for 6 months so we decided to take advantage of the offer in order to eliminate interest expenses for over a year while we knocked out our remaining $4000 of CC debt (no fee on BT if applied at time of application).
Once we’d moved our balances over, we were down to just one CC account and a single “Debt Consolidation Loan” that was hammering us with interest expenses (13%). Using one of the checks that MC sent along with our card, I made a deposit into my checking account for the balance of that loan (approx. $12000) and promptly paid the loan off, effectively consolidating all Credit Card and Loan debt to the 0% credit card. I will say that I paid a small fee for using the check (2-3% of the amount?), but this was significantly better than continuing to pay out the nose for the interest on the loan.
As with any use of credit, I would caution anyone who considers using these checks as a debt reduction tool to do the math before jumping in. My wife and I discussed several factors at length before choosing to make this move, not the least of which was our own ability to pay off the outstanding balance (approx $16000) in the prescribed timeline, before the intro rate expired. I’m pleased to say that we were able to eliminate the balance altogether by January 2009 (6 months ahead of schedule) due to some good fortune and level-headed budgeting decisions on our parts. We’re now free of all CC debt and are working toward paying off one car loan and then on to the mortgage…
Sorry for the long post, but I hope that this is a helpful (and possibly unique) addition to the site.
I just got the 0%APR Citicard and I’m trying to figure out what the finance charges are during this period, if there are any. It says 50cent minimum finance charge. And I tried calling them to get someone on the phone who didn’t even know what I was asking and kept reading the same thing over and over again. Anyone know how the finance charge works?
The finance charge is calculated on your balance transfer fee amount. Always remember too that they always apply your payment to the lowest interest rate first so the higher ones keep accumulating during that time. I good rule that i use per DAVE RAMSEY is to attack your lowest balance first and get rid of it regardless of the interest rate because it will show quick progress and will keep you motivated to attack the next lowest balance and so on and so forth. Pay the minimum on all the others though while attacking the one.
Clark Howard once suggested paying student loan balances last after everything else, because government-backed student loans offer deferrment or elmination due to disablility, unemployment, or death. Credit cards and commercial loans should be targeted first since there is rarely forgiveness for anything with cc compaines!