How can you use cards that don't report limits to your advantage (or can you?)

[haulingthescoreup]

We've had lots of members go to war with their CCC's over their Visa Signature/ MC World/ etc cards with no pre-set limits that don't report credit limits. As I understand it, unfortunately they report the highest past balance instead, so unless you used the card a while back to pick up a Jag or spend a month in Tahiti, your on-going monthly util looks really high.

Dawn found how the CCC's are supposed to code these, so that they will huddle over in the corner with American Express charge cards and not mess with util, but as I recall, she couldn't make them do it for more than a month.

So if these cards are going to keep reporting with regular CC's, is there a way to work them so that they will be helpful for our scores? If the CCC's did it right, it should be possible to put a humongous charge on there, either with a purchase or balance transfer check, and then immediately turn around and pay it off BEFORE it appears on your statement and reports to the CRA's. I once had a $10K+ balance on a card and paid it off before it hit the statement, and USAA reported it in the highest past balance column, so I know that CCC's can do it if they will.

Of course, the scary thing about this is if there were some sort of problem with the early pay-off, the ultra-high balance would post, and then you'd have a month to sweat your other CCC's going nuts.

And I suppose that in a perfect world, the solution would be to get the CCC's to report properly, so that high balances could occasionally be parked there without the you-know-what hitting the fan...

Has anyone come up with a work-around?

[Anonymous]

I just asked this same question yesterday.  I recently got a Firestone card.  Was very happy until I found out they do not report CLs.  The person who responded to my post said that their really is not benefit to having a card like this, as far as Fico scoring is concerned.  I would love to hear more opinions and experiences about this.

[Anonymous]

Since many of the cards that don't report CLs are of the "no preset spending limit" variety, theoretically it would even be possible to give yourself an instant CLI (in the way it reports) by charging over the actual CL and letting that report as the High Balance.  The fact that FICO substitutes the High Balance for the CL in the absence of a reported CL only works against you when the CL is greater than the High Balance.  For no preset spending limit cards, that doesn't necessarily have to be the case.

I leave it to braver men and women than I to try out in the real world.

Message Edited by cheddar on 04-11-2008 11:52 AM

[Red1Blue]

I just talked to Smith Barney about my no preset spending limit on my card. He said it will not report CL on my CR. Now I need to see what is the value of having this card if it is going hurt my score and I have to do all kind of belly dancing to make the card work for me to increase my fico. I might just call Citi and they allow me to change the card, I would change it over to a different card. I already have Citi Dividend MC. What other card is a good card to change it over to at Citi?