BankAmericard Balance Transfer Offer

I wanted to write a review of a Bank of America credit card today because I’ve hit a few other major issuers at this point. I know very little about Bank of America credit cards in general as I’ve never carried one, but I do have a very long banking relationship with them so I am familiar with the company itself. Overall I would say the jury is still out on B of A in general as I’ve had both good and bad experiences with them. What I have learned recently about them is that it’s very difficult to find a good balance transfer offer on their website. I’m going to talk a little bit about the BankAmericard balance transfer offer because that was the card the online selection process suggested to me. Note that I was not logged in to my account at the time so there was no way I could have been profiled.

First of all, I decided to review this card because I went to the B of A website and went to their credit card section. From there, I went to “view all credit cards” and then chose the filtering option to take a look at the ones with low balance transfer rates. They listed a bunch of cards that were actually rewards cards with “low balance transfer rates” but because I don’t find it to be a good idea to use cards intended for transfers for purchases I scrolled down the page until I found a plain vanilla credit card which in theory should have the best rates — and it did out of all of the options listed.

BankAmericard Balance Transfer Pricing
The card does have low rates. It offers a 0% APR on balance transfers for a period of 15 cycles however all balance transfers need to be made within 60 days that you open your account. No problem there as far as I can see. The elite pricing after those 15 cycles is 10.99% for balance transfers. Again, this is a good deal and it’s actually on the lower end of the range for flagship balance transfer cards from large banks.

Here’s what I don’t like. The balance transfer fee. I knew there had to be a bit of a catch. Yes, you get 15 months of paying no interest. If you qualify you also get rewarded with a 10.99% APR. Sounds great right? Think again. The balance transfer fee for this offer is 4% of the total amount moved to your new BankAmericard. That’s no good. Most other plain vanilla balance transfer deals with this type of pricing, which in B of A’s defense is favorable, typically come with balance transfer fees at 3%, not 4%. You can’t expect to find a 0% balance transfer offer with no fee unless you opt for Slate from Chase, which is currently available as a no fee transfer with similar interest rate pricing.

Is the BankAmericard Balance Transfer Offer a Good Deal
It is until you get to the balance transfer fee. If it didn’t have a balance transfer fee it would be inline with other premium offers from other issuers even though there are a few with 0% for 18 months on transfers (Citi and Discover). If you are going to pay a transfer fee, which you don’t have to right now if you are looking at Slate, there is no reason to apply for a card that will cost you $10 more for every thousand you transfer. Therefore, I can’t really recommend the BankAmericard balance transfer offer over other more favorable deals if you are trying to save the most money possible.