Available credit to income and CLIs

[Anonymous]

Is it difficult to get CLIs if your total available credit is already close to your annual income? I'm a professional student so I have a fixed and fairly limited income over the next few years. Right now, my available credit is about 80% of my income.

[cutemarty1]

Depends on your credit history and spending habits....

MY income is 105k but my total Credit line is only 35k for revolving cards.

[Anonymous]

I see. Well the interesting thing is that I asked Amex for a CLI at 8 months which they denied b/c my credit to income was sufficient in their eyes. I was surprised b/c my history with them (and in general) is good, I waited much longer than the 61 days to request my first CLI, and I always pay my cards in full every month, leaving me about a 7% utilization all the time. The CSR said I should not expect any CLI until my income changes. However, 2 months later they approved me for a 2nd card with almost double the credit line and at the lowest available APR, which means my internal risk score with them is quite good. One factor is that the application did ask for total value of liquid assets while the CLI form does not.

[frogfan12]

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@cutemarty1 wrote:

Depends on your credit history and spending habits....

MY income is 105k but my total Credit line is only 35k for revolving cards.

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+1

My CLs are about $10K less than my salary. I'm sure I could apply for a few more cards and easily exceed my income, seeing that my last approval was for a $10K CL with AMEX. 

[ferrari]

For some reason I get a feeling that income is more of a factor in deciding to grant a CLI than to issue a new card. CITI would not increase my limit on my $8000 Forward because I have sufficient credit for my income. When my BOA card became a Visa Signature I was actually glad because that's $5000 that other creditors cannot see now.

[Anonymous]

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@ferrari wrote:

For some reason I get a feeling that income is more of a factor in deciding to grant a CLI than to issue a new card. CITI would not increase my limit on my $8000 Forward because I have sufficient credit for my income. When my BOA card became a Visa Signature I was actually glad because that's $5000 that other creditors cannot see now.

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Hmm interesting point! Do you know if Forward comes as a Visa Signature? My impression is that it doesn't.

[crunching_numbers]

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@ferrari wrote:

For some reason I get a feeling that income is more of a factor in deciding to grant a CLI than to issue a new card. CITI would not increase my limit on my $8000 Forward because I have sufficient credit for my income. When my BOA card became a Visa Signature I was actually glad because that's $5000 that other creditors cannot see now.

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What do you mean by other creditors not being able to see $5000? What am I not understanding about the signature card??  I feel like such a credit newbie (with a 26 year credit history- LOL) I am so happy for these boards. I am finally learning all the stuff I should already know....

[Itsmeagain]

My annual income is about 65K.  My total open lines of credit is 102K. 

I think one of the main reasons I have been approved for such large credit lines is because I maintain the balances under 10% and PIF most of them before the statement is cut.

I haven't asked for a CLI in over a year but when I was building these lines I asked for CLI's at every opportunity and demonstrated that I could manage larger and larger lines of credit and not abuse them.

My largest CL is $14,200 and my smallest is 5K.

YMMV

[Anonymous]

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@crunching_numbers wrote:

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@ferrari wrote:

For some reason I get a feeling that income is more of a factor in deciding to grant a CLI than to issue a new card. CITI would not increase my limit on my $8000 Forward because I have sufficient credit for my income. When my BOA card became a Visa Signature I was actually glad because that's $5000 that other creditors cannot see now.

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What do you mean by other creditors not being able to see $5000? What am I not understanding about the signature card??  I feel like such a credit newbie (with a 26 year credit history- LOL) I am so happy for these boards. I am finally learning all the stuff I should already know....

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Visa Signature is technically a NPSL card, kinda like an Amex Charge card. They do tell you what the internal limit is but you can exceed it as long as you pay it off. For a long time Visa Signature didn't report a credit limit (since it is technically what they call a credit access line). Recently some lenders have started reporting it, Chase for example.