Strategies for Maximizing
Your App-o-Rama Profits
Practically anyone can profit from App-o-Rama, but the keys to maximizing your profits are research, speed and attention to detail. These are really all it takes to become an expert at App-o-Rama and earn thousands of dollars per year with just a few hours of work!
First, you really need to carefully select which credit card offers you are interested in. Credit cards with the longest 0% interest rates periods are best suited for App-o-Rama. Apply first for any card with at least a 12 month interest free period, but don't shy away from six or nine month offers as well - you want all of the credit lines that you can get. In addition, read the fine print both before you apply and when you card arrives, as you need to know all potential fees that your card may charge. An increasing number of cards may charge a balance transfer or cash advance fee, though these are usually capped. Some cards charge annual fees as well, though many are waived in the first year. The lower your fees, the higher your profits will be, but fees are just a cost of doing business. A $75 balance transfer fee on a $10,000 credit line will dent your profits, but still works out to just a 0.75% annual interest rate and still leaves room for substantial profit with a savings account paying 5%!
Map out which credit cards you are going to apply for - perhaps as many as 10 or 15. Finally, it's App-o-Rama time! Turn off the phone, send the kids out to play and lock yourself away with your computer for then next hour or two. Speed is critical to hitting an App-o-Rama home run. Go straight from one credit card application to the next until all are filled out. You are racing the credit bureaus reporting system, which will choke off your ability to be approved for new cards once your applications start hitting the system. Make sure that you have pertinent information handy, such as past addresses and your social security number, before you get started.
Open your savings account a few days in advance so that you can take advantage of every single day of free loans from your credit cars. Seek out a high yield savings account where you can earn a risk free 5% or more per year. Online banks generally pay substantially more than your local branch and accounts are easy to set up and access. Check for confirmation that your savings are FDIC insured, which makes them essentially risk free. Deposit those balance transfer checks into your account as soon as they arrive, since each day you procrastinate results in money left on the table.
Attention to detail comes into play once you have all of your cards in hand. Never repay the balance late, or you'll find your profits quickly wasted. Even worse, as few as one or two late payments can result in penalty interest rates as high as 30% turning your fun little venture into a money losing proposition! Make sure you chart all of the fees and deadlines with each card, so that you can minimize or avoid them all together.
Finally, you must know when the 0% rate ends on each card. Mark it on every calendar you own! Fail to repay the balances by this date, and your profits will evaporate in a heartbeat! At least a month in advance, determine where you will get the cash to repay these balances. Be sure to you leave yourself enough time to recover money from your savings account. Better still, monitor your credit score to see if it has recovered enough to do a brand new App-o-Rama, transferring the balances to a whole new set of cards and keeping the profit party going for yet another year!
