Total Motorcycle Community Forums

cash for toys or dont buy it at all.

storysunfolding wrote:You've also advocated never using credit cards. I put everything on credit cards. I pay them off at the end of the month unless I'm ok with getting a large purchase and paying it off with my budgetted fun money each month. For the most part I don't pay finance fees. When I do I get a rate of 7.9% because I have an excellent credit history from using my cards and having alot of available credit.

The best part? I have free travel insurance, I get 10-30% of car rentals, I get 5% cash back on all purchases made during the last year ($1500 in free money last year). On top of that I get 3% off gas and restaurant tabs. Now if my dealer would have let me pay on my card, I may have waited an extra month to pool my monthly play budgets so I could pay it off and take advantage of my anytime 5% off sale!

What credit card are you using that gives these nice benefits? Is there an annual fee for it?

isnowbrd wrote:What credit card are you using that gives these nice benefits? Is there an annual fee for it?

USAA Platiunum Card (mastercard)
American Express Costco Card

No annual fees and the benefits differ between the cards. I call once a year to ask them how high they can raise my credit limit without checking my credit report. 6 months later I call to tell them I'm offered a better rate with X card and will they match it. Do that long enough and you have alot of available credit which is great for the credit score and getting future rates. Just make sure to monitor for fraudulent charges and report ASAP. You're liable for $50 with each card but they take care of the rest.


USAA is by far the better card but you have to have a military connection to get it

If the OP is still out there, I'd like to point out that this is not a good deal, it's a sucker deal. The dealer is NOT talking about a standard loan for financing (which would be 15 yrs./156 months). No bank is going to make such a riduculous loan on a bike. I suspect that the deal is really a credit card arrangement, and that $199/month is the minimum payment on the credit line.

What makes this a bad deal is that the "loan" is for a large amount of money (that you can't easily pay off if the terms change), and that these transactions fall under the rules of revolving credit lines (i.e. credit cards), which allow the lender to pretty much do whatever they want as far as interest goes. I guarantee that if you read all of the fine print on the contract, you'll find that the lender will have dozens of ways to suddenly bump your interest rate at any time, for any reason.

Could you handle your payment (and interest rate) suddenly doubling because last months payment posted a day late, or maybe you were late paying some other bill? That's how revolving credit works. It's probably the worst way there is to borrow money, short of going to a loan shark.

If you can't get a regular bank loan, with normal terms and conditions, then you can't afford the bike.