Balance Transfer for Life, is it worth it?

EDIT:  Please note that the Advanta Balance Transfer For Life Offer is no longer available. You might like the Advanta Mastercard that offers no interst for 90 Days every month!

A new popluar tool that credit card companies are using to get your business is to offer something called a Balance Transfer For Life. A Balance Transfer For Life is simply what it sounds like, a credit card transfer at a particular rate for the life of that balance. Sounds like a great idea right? Well lets drill into the details before we make that assumption.

First lets talk about the popular Discover 0% balance transfer for life offer. This one seems good enough, transfer over a balance and have 0% on it until it is paid off. But one you dive into the fine print you see that you need to make a minimum of 2 purchases using the card each month to keep the 0% rate on that balance transfer. Here is how Discover will make money on this balance transfer. Once you start using this card for charges, those charges will earn interest at the normal card rate, which usually is somewhere in the 10% – 18% APR range. So when you make payments to the card each month, those payments go toward the balance transfer first, so those purchase will keep accruing interest until you pay of the balance transfer. So over time if you use the card for a lot of high dollar purchases, the interest will keep accruing to your account. This may or may not be a good deal for you based on the amount of money to be balance transfered.

Next lets take a look at the Balance Transfer For Life offer from Advanta Mastercard. Advanta is offering a rate of 2.99% for the life of the balance. When you drill down into the Terms and Conditions there are no added requirements to keep the 2.99% for the life of the balance. Sure 2.99% is higher than the 0% offered by discover, but without the added pressure of having purchases stacked up behind the balance transfer you will save more money in the long run.

If you are trying to consolidate or reduce some debt, a balance transfer for life can be a great tool to help you. You do need to pay attention to the terms to make sure that the deal doesn’t actually end up costing you more money. If you decide to do a balance transfer for life, I would reccomend the Advanta Life-of-Balance Platinum Card with its 2.99% balance transfer for life option.

If anyone has come across any other balance transfer for life offers, please leave a comment here so that I can review them and add them to this post.

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NOTE: For posts that contain bonuses, be sure to read the post for bonus expiration dates. Links may work but the bonus may have expired.

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