I hate it when I just plain forget to post things, which is I’m glad I did that survey 😉 One of the main reasons why I brought up the fact that anyone can apply for business credit cards is that you can take out 0% APR balance transfers (see my detailed posts on how I do this first) and because business accounts and balances don’t show up on your consumer credit report, it won’t dink your personal credit score. The only problem is that business credit card offers tend not to be as juicy as the best consumer card offers. Still, here are some of the better ones. Again, I’m looking for 0% APR for the longest time, applying to both purchases and balance transfers, no annual fees, and lowest balance transfer fees.
Advanta Platinum Rewards BusinessCard MasterCard – No annual fee, 0% APR fixed for 15 months on balance transfers, balance transfer fee of 3% (min $5, max $50). This probably the longest one I’ve seen. There is also a cashback program, but don’t use this when you have a balance transfer.
Chase Platinum Business Rebate Card – No annual fee, 0% APR fixed for 12 months on purchases and balance transfers, balance transfer fee of 3% (min $5, max $75). 3% Cash Back on for purchases at restaurants, gas stations, office supply stores, building supply stores, hardware and home improvement stores
Chase Business Cash Rewards Card – Similar to above; No annual fee, 0% APR fixed for 12 months on purchases and balance transfers, balance transfer fee of 3% (min $5, max $75). Somewhat confusing tiered cashback program up of to 5% back. May be worth it for big spenders.
CitiBusiness Card with ThankYou Network – No annual fee, 0% APR fixed for 12 months on purchases, see application for balance transfer fee detail. There is also a $100 Gift Card after you make $250 in purchases!
The Best Credit Card Bonus Offers – November 2024
Big List of Free Stocks from Brokerage Apps
Best Interest Rates on Cash - November 2024
Free Credit Scores x 3 + Free Credit Monitoring
Best No Fee 0% APR Balance Transfer Offers
Little-Known Cellular Data Plans That Can Save Big Money
How To Haggle Your Cable or Direct TV Bill
Big List of Free Consumer Data Reports (Credit, Rent, Work)
I have a question about the balance transfer fee. This fee would appear in the monthly balance, and it would incur finance charges and has a non-zero interest rate. Is that right? So if I was given a credit limit of $5000, then I should not do a balance transfer for more than $4900, just to play it safe. Since the fee varies from $50 to $75. Thank you for your help.
Yes, the finance charges are usually treated as a purchase and accrue interest accordingly (it could be at 0% too). You’ll usually just rack up the minimum finance charge, which is around $1 a month. (ex. $50 x 15%/12 = 62 cents a month)
Credit cards usually don’t let you balance transfer the whole amount anyways, for example you might only be able to get $4,800 out of $5,000 using your example, partially for this reason.
Since these cards should not appear on your personal credit, can you utilize more of the credit limits? Or will that raise a red flag with the creditors?
seems the citicard site says that the fee is waived for this offer.
I heard that it is not a good idea to transfer balance over 90% of the card limit. Otherwise, the credit score will be lower a lot. is this true?
For example, if I have a card that have credit limit of 10,000, I should transfer only 9000 to make the one card utilization
what would be the best credit line limit to ask for business?
Hmm…can you transfer over the credit limit from a regular Citi card to a business Citi card?
Brian – Unfortunately, I don’t think so. At least not the last time I tried.
How about transfer over the credit limit from a personal card to a business card issued by different financial institutions?
Are you guys talking about transfering balances, or the moving of credit limits themselves?
When I say move credit limits I mean the max you can borrow- for example:
Card 1 has credit limit of $1000, Card 2 has credit limit of $2,000
After moving credit limits, Card 1 has limit of $100, Card 2 has credit limit of $2,900.
———————-
By transfering balances, I mean moving actual money – for example:
Card 1 has a debt balance of $10,000 and Card 2 has a balance of 0.
Card 1 transfers $5,000 of it’s balance to Card 2. Both Card 1 and Card 2 now has a balance of $5,000.
—-
Thus, my answers are:
1) No, Citibank did not let me move *credit limits* from personal to business credit cards.
2) Yes, I have transferred business card *balances* to personal credit cards, as the same name (my name “John Doe”) was on both cards. I don’t know if this would work if your business card said “AAA Hardware, Inc.”
Someone online (perhaps you) recommended a 0% WaMu Business card. I read pretty carefully and believe I applied for a 0% transfer deal, but when I got the card, it said purchases were 0%. I paid the balance, and refuse to get worked up… perhaps it was my honest error. But in fact I believe they botched the deal, a deal I can’t prove, that was pitched via the internet. Overall I await offers that are mailed to me, and have had much more success with those than with general internet sign-ups.
WaMu Business Card? Not me (you can search my archives through the form on the right).
But let me guess – Is this what you saw? (The ad was from Providian, which is now WaMu credit cards)
Always print out terms and conditions to a PDF file when you apply online. It takes 5 extra seconds and a tiny bit of hard drive space. 🙂
Tom – It looks like you’re right.
Luu – Yes, that is what some people say, although I have never seen any proof of such numerical cutoffs.
I have that WaMu card — I did a $100 BT, paid it off right away, and then started making purchases at 0%. It was a tricky offer, though.
Last year, I transferred a few thousand dollars from one of my Citibank consumer cards to a new Bank of America business credit card, just to see if my personal credit score would rise significantly. Sure enough, it did, since the new business credit account doesn’t affect my personal credit history.
My credit score is 760 now, and I may transfers another $1,000 to get my score above 770. Why do I want to get above 770? 770 will get me the “top tier” insurance rate with my car insurance company, and I’m hoping that will translate to some serious savings.
Hey Jonathan..
This may be a “little” off topic, but I haven’t opened a business credit card account for my LLC because they want me to be personally responsible, along with the LLC.
Do you know how to get a business card without this limitation?
Thanks!
Mike – That will be very hard to find. There may be a way, but probably not without a long business credit history or some form of collateral. Otherwise, it’s just too easy to walk away from business debts. You can open an LLC for $100 and a few forms in many states.
Jonathan,
I have noticed that if you click the back button on both the Citi Professional and CitiBusiness application webpages you get an additional 5,000 thankyou network points. It is a nice extra $50 for student loans.
Make sure you allow pop-up windows.
Also, on the Business applications when it requires you to put down what your annual revenue is, What do you put down? Income? Actual Revenue?
I am considering applying for the CitiBusiness card and I would also like to know what to put down for “Annual Revenue.”
When applying for a business credit card does it put a HARD PULL on the personal credit report?
formed an LLC about 9 months ago, wanted to build credit for company and applied for about 4 business cards( all were from “the list” like office depot, home depot, it seems, as i have been told, this was a “bad” move, how badly will this affect my personal credit score, told that a C-corp can apply for as many as they like, to their advantage, but for an LLC this could be “bad business”
Jared – Yes.
E – I’ve never heard that before, and don’t necessarily believe it until I have seen some sort of backing documentation.
If you open these business credit cards and it does do a hard pull on your credit, how much does this effect your personal credit rating? I’ve got an LLC and I need a credit card. I don’t want my personal credit getting dinged though for the pull.
Does this work the same against your credit like the mortgage industry where you can have multiple pulls by companies in the same industry within a given time frame and the credit agencies know not to ding your credit for each pull?
Hey Jonathon, I am really trying to get a down a large balance ($17,000) on a personal credit card and I have been doing some research before I open another creidt card. I read a woman’s post somewhere that she got high credit limits ($25,000) from mutiple business credit cards and they don’t own a business. I only want to open one credit card with a high limit so I can transfer the balance to a 0% transfer card so I can work on paying it off. Do you know which credit cards offer higher initial credit limits. I have very good credit but would hate to open a card and have it be a $5,000 limit as that wouldn’t help me much. What is your recommendation? Will opening an account as a sole proprietorship keep my credit limit lower too. I guess if I am reading your post correctly, I could open the credit card see what my limit is and if it isn’t good, then close it immediately and it won’t go on my credit history. Right?? Thanks in advance!