I am planning to get a car in the next month. I have 3 credit cards, i want to use 2 of them for $20K each and put down $10K. I have 0% for 12 months on them. Do you all think its a good idea to use both those cards and write a balance tranfer check on them?
Or i can get a loan at a dealer, then write a balance transfer check to pay them off. If i do that, will i still have to pay the interest, finance charge on the loan?

I considered doing this before I decided to lease my car. IMO I will always buy a car with a CC from now on as long as rates stay as high as they are.

Anyway on to the question. The easiest way to do this is to use those checks and deposit them into your checking account about 1-2 weeks before you plan on buying the auto. Make sure that these checks are really 0% for the time you said, also check the fees they charge. Most are 3% but some banks cap the max fee at say $75 where some are unlimited. So 50k would cost you $1500 in fees just to deposit if the fee isnt capped.

DO NOT get a loan and then use the checks to pay it off. That defeats the purpose IMO.

Now once you have the money verified in your checking account there is NO hassle at the dealership about if your going to use checks/credit etc.

If you get a loan at a dealership you will have at a minimum 2 inquiries. If you have the means to already pay for the vehicle, why suffer the additional inquiries?

I wouldn't.

If you have zero APR for purchases too, charge it on the cards. When you use the checks there is usually a fee and also no reward points or cash back.

I'd only do it if able to pay off within the year before the zero APR expires.

First question, Will the car dealership allow me to use two credit cards for $20K each, in addition to that, i was thinking after the first year of 0%, i can do a bt to another card with zero percent, by that time i konw i can drop the balance down to about $10K on each card. Any suggestions on that?

LOL you can use 14 credit cards to pay for a vehicle purchase outright if you want to.

Thanks Marv, i thought there was a restriction on how many credit cards the dealership will allow us to use.

Not where I work. Why on earth would anyone care?

Long as they get paid, just keep swiping the cards.

thks for the advice, the reason i thought they would care is because they get charged a trans fee. I should be getting car soon. very excited, now i just have to ask chase and bofa to increase my credit line. I konw my score is going to drop once i charge that amount to my card, my util is going to be very high. lol

Many times the dealer will pass their CC processing fees along to you, usally at about 1.5% of the total you are charging, so in your case that would be $750.

We get charged the same trans fees whether you are a service customer or a sales customer. No difference really if you PIF on a CC.

I personally would not do it, unless I already had the cash money in the bank to pull it off, and just wanted the rewards or something. Life has a funny way of pulling of a little surprize for us at a latter date on down the road when one leasts expects it.

good luck to you.

Thats not a practice the credit card company allows is it? But i am assuming if you deny in paying the 1.5% fee, they wont accept the card.

By Visa/MC rules yes you are correct, but nobody pays attention to that rule many times. I have a friend who bought a car on a cc for the rewards points (as Marv said is a valid reason) and they charged him back the fees. If he refused there were no hard feeelings, but they made in clear they would not accept the card.

From my experience dealers will do four things.

1. Not except them other than for a down payment.
2. Allow you to use the CC and without any additional fees (very rare)
3. Pass the % actual fee onto you.
4. Make up a higher priced fee: "want to use a credit card, I have to charge $750 more"...

There really are no rule with a dealer other than their own.