I have today had a reply to an email I sent to a banking buddy of mine.
I asked him how credit card companies work out how to send out special offers of zero interest etc.
Well it would seem that it is triggered by a number of factors; percentage of credit owed; length of time money owed; amount owed and other cards owned, plus credit history.
It would seem that to make the most of offers you need to have at least three cards; none of them can be related to each other, ie the issuing banks or companies must have no conections. All three must have a balance on them. Now to trigger an offer you need to be seen to be paying off one of the cards faster than the others, and not spending on that card, but you must still be paying the minimum on the other cards.
Card companies hate their plans to be mucked up, the longer you take to pay off the dept the more they earn. As you are paying the dept off quickly they think that you have money to spare, they then offer you to transfer a balance, as they don't want to lose you as a customer that they can earn from.
You then transfer the balance leaving one card empty, it is now important never to spend on the empty card or the one that you have transfered the balance to. The empty card is the one that you are hoping to recieve your next offer on, and the card that you have transfered the balance to will start to loose it's advantage if you start to spend on it as purchases are charged at a higher rate, and you would need to clear the whole balance to stop yourself being charged that higher rate.
Now when the empty card's company get fed up with no custom through your card they will start to offer you deals to try to get you back, don't grab the first offer, but wait they tend to get better. In the mean time make sure you keep up payments on your other cards.
When an offer comes through that you can live with, transfer the balance from the third untouched card; this then leaves you with two companies that will want your business back. This cycle can be continued until you have cleared all of your balances, but remember you must take note of when offers come to an end otherwise you may get hit by huge interest rates.
Other things do trigger offers, but unusual payment paterns really interest banks.

Have fun and save
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