Expires Today: Discover 12 Month 0% No Fee Balance Transfer
Happy Leap Day! We are leaping out of IRA bonus week, to make room for the Discover 0% No Fee Balance Transfer, which expires today! But don’t worry; we’ll be back with more IRA bonuses tomorrow.
It’s not often that we find out in advance when a limited time offer will expire, so it’s nice we got a heads up on this one! It’s also interesting to note that the 0% Discover offer followed the same pattern as last year, available only during January and February each year. Will we have to wait until next January to see it again?
The Discover More offer expires today, specifically this afternoon, so if you were planning to take advantage of the offer, you might want to drop everything and apply right now. If you are like me, I often read about something and make a mental note to come back to it, but often forget to make the return trip back…. so here is your reminder (and mine)!
And don’t forget, this one will come in handy down the road because you don’t have to do the balance transfer until this summer if you want to hold onto it and coordinate it with transferring an offer that will expire sometime in the next five months.
Here’s a recap of the original details of this offer:
Discover No Fee Balance Transfer
Out with the old and in with the new. Just in time to replace one of our old 0% cards expiring soon is the new offer from Discover More for a 12 month 0% balance transfer with no balance transfer fee!
As many of you know, leveraging no fee 0% balance transfers are one of my favorite types of free money!
How to Get 0% Balance Transfer with No Fee
- Open a new Discover More card by February 29, 2012.
- Make a balance transfer by July 10, 2012.
- Get a 0% balance transfer with no fees for 12 months.
Discover Terms and Conditions
- No Annual Fee
- Balance transfers after 7/10/2012 will have $10 or 5% balance transfer fee, whichever is greater.
- The minimum payment due calculation increases by $40 when you have a balance transfer balance.
More on Discover More
Timing the offer. The 0% for 12 months doesn’t actually start until you make your transfer. So if you have a 0% that expires later in the spring (many of mine expire around April, since that is when we bought our vacation rental last year), you can apply for the card now, but then wait to start the 0% balance transfer to maximize the timing of both the old and new 0%.
0% balance transfers. As a reminder, I don’t use 0% balance transfers to carry balances for regular purchases. Instead I use them for leverage and credit card arbitrage. Currently we’re floating quite a bit (about $228,000 right now) primarily to lower rates on our real estate investments. I always get excited when I see 0% balance transfers with no fees as it is ultimately the cheapest way to finance those investments. Nope, definitely not for everyone!
If you have debt. If you do have credit card debt that you are trying to pay off as part of your new years resolutions, you can transfer it to the Discover More to save you money on the interest. Just be sure you have a plan to pay it off before the end of the 12 months.
Cash back. This card also qualifies for the rotating 5% cash back. However, if you’re planning to use the card to take advantage of the no fee balance transfer, I suggest you don’t put purchases on it at the same time. I keep all of our purchase cards separate from our balance transfer cards to make sure I don’t jeopardize the 0%.
I am interested in doing this – possibly purchasing CDs or investing in a stable bond fund. How are you able to extract money from the card in order to do this?
Hi Mark,
I transfer the balance to another credit card. If you don’t have a balance on the other card, you can request a check for the negative balance. It’s a little trick for getting to the money out. I usually use Citibank for doing this, but I’ve heard others also recommend American Express.
I must be missing something. When I get the Discover card, it would have $0 balance on it. I want to be able to use the entire limit of the card to invest/bank/whatever.
Right, let’s say you have a Citicard with a $0 balance. Now you get the new Discover card (it also comes with $0 balance, like you mentioned).
You call Discover and ask for a balance transfer (let’s say $10,000). You ask Discover to transfer the $10k to your Citicard.
Now you have a Discover card with a $10k balance and a Citicard with a negative $10k balance. You call (or go online) to Citibank and request a refund of your negative balance. They send a check.
Does that make more sense?
Got it – thanks!