0% Credit Card APR drawbacks?

[sethmachine]

Many credit companies offer 0% intro APR on purchases for periods as long as a year or even more.

Thus, you only need to make the minimum payment and can carry large balances interest free until the intro offer expires.

The only caveat is to make sure you can pay the entire balance in full right before the intro APR of 0% expires.

Thus, you can invest the money you would have used to pay off the CC each month.

I have been doing this, but what I notice is my credit has gradually gone down due to have higher utilization.

Are there any other drawbacks?

[safari]

I used to do that 10 years or so ago when banks were offering 0% APR balance transfers with $0 fees, and saving accounts were paying good interest rates. I transferred over $100K from credit cards into a savings account, which gave me an easy risk-free investment. My credit score went down by 30 points or so, but I was expecting that, and after I paid off my balances, it went back up. There weren't any other drawbacks. It's not worth doing now though because the interest rates are so low and you won't find any 0% balance transfer offers with $0 fees.

[disneysteve]

I used to do the very same thing as safari. It hasn't been worth doing for years, though, because of fees and low interest.

[Jluke]

You could lose money on your investments if you are using mutual funds, stocks, etc.

You might have to sell at the wrong time (good/bad).

You could owe taxes.

[FLA]

I take advantage of the ones that are just 0% on future purchases for so many months, not balance transfers. Then there are no fees unless you fail to pay it off in the designated time period. I try to have one 0% interest card available to me at all times as a back up to the EF. I rarely will put a big purchase on it that I need a few months to be able to pay it off, like say a house full of flooring in my old house, otherwise I don't use it at all because the rewards usually suck.

the offers are coming less often but I got the one someone posted on here a month or so ago. Never seems to affect my credit score.