Credit Card Experience

[s_haliz]

We have had applied many times CCs - whether it is store CCc, or general CCs. Often times we may get denied. Then thought comes to our mind that I have already xx numbers of CCs from yy number of credit issuers. How can they deny me? Or that so and so are in a same shape as me (when it comes to Credit score, etc.) and he/she got approved but not me. 

Similarly about CLs. They give you for example a limit of $1,000. And you are like, my highest CL card is having $5,900 limit and how can they give me a mediocore CL like this? Or that my friend got $4,000 limit and how come I got this low? 

So when you judge these CCs on any decision (whether applying and getting approved/denied, assignement of available CLs, increase of CLs etc.) do you labeled them (good, not so good, etc.) based on your positive/negative experience with your other CC issuers or based on what others had/not had similar or difference experience? 

[DaveSignal]

I have cards that I hold just in case I need them.  And cards that I use regularly and judge based on lending policies and rewards structure.

Chase gave me a second chance with the CSP even though I have a charged-off account with Chase.  And the UR reweards and massive signup bonus is fantastic!

Amex approved me for the card that I wanted, easily changed my due date to the date that I wanted, and gave me a 3x CLI when I asked.  They give me 2x MR for buying groceries at military commissaries in Europe!  So they are fantastic too!

My card with Barclays has not been used as much since I got the CSP, but it has no-AF, a big signup, and is easy to earn points with overseas.  I just redeemed over $650 in travel credits and still have $100 in rewards left to redeem later.  wonderful!

My BoA card has a chip and earns 1.5x on everything with no foreign transaction fee.  Its very easy to redeem rewards for travel credit.  They gave me CLI when I asked for it.   So I think they are great too!

I could keep going, but I like all of my creditors for one reason or another.  I haven't been denied anything in a long time.  I guess I judge them based on the ease of use of their rewards program, where I can use the card outside of the USA without fees, how easy it is to monitor my account activity and pay bills, and their generosity with credit lines.... but starting limits are not really as important to me as long as I have enough credit to put any charges that I want on the card.  I do expect some CLIs over time though if only as a sign of my progress or increased status in the eyes of that lender.

[chwebb1]

For me, the most important factors for a credit card company are: Credit limit, APR, rewards, and customer service.

Although I don't generally carry a balance, if I needed to, I'd do it on one of my Barclaycards, likely the Ring. For me, Barclays offered great APRs on both of my cards (8% for the Ring, 13.99% on the SM). Their generosity with credit limits is an issue for me, but they do have good customer service, and the rewards on the SM card are good. The Ring is a great card for foreign transactions.

For a large purchase, I'd likely use my AMEX or Discover. They both have good customer service, decent rewards, and they offer purchase protections. The APR isn't as good on these (17.99 on my BCE, 22.24 AMEX Blue Sky, and 18.99% on the Discover). The credit limit on both are good for me, but of course, the AMEX is much better.

I mostly use my Citi card for 5% categories, and in case AMEX or Discover isn't accepted (depending on the time of the month). I've found them to be generous with CLs. Their customer service is decent, and the rewards are OK (although I find Discover's 5% categories to be better). I also have a 17.99% APR on this card.

I find BoA to be reasonably generous with CLs, although their APR on my Cash Rewards card is high (19.99%). Their phone customer service leaves a lot to be desired (for me), and their in-bank CSRs are constantly trying to upsell me on other bank services. Their rewards are pretty good, and I like that you can get an extra 10% if you deposit it into a BoA account (I opened a BoA savings account for this purpose). I think the BoA BBR is probably the best card ever since you get basically a free $120/year. My APR on that card is 18.99%.

I think if I had to choose which 3 lenders to go with, and cancel the rest of my cards, I'd likely go with AMEX, Discover and Barclays.

[s_haliz]

Thank you for sharing your experience. 

[takeshi74]

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@s_haliz wrote:

We have had applied many times CCs - whether it is store CCc, or general CCs. Often times we may get denied. Then thought comes to our mind that I have already xx numbers of CCs from yy number of credit issuers. How can they deny me?

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Start with the reasons for denial cited in the letters that the creditors send to you if you want to understand why you're being denied and what you can do.

You can never just assume that creditor A will approve you or for the same limit, APR, etc as creditor B.  Creditors have varying underwriting critieria.  Additionally, your credit may have changed since the last creditor approved you.

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@s_haliz wrote:

So when you judge these CCs on any decision (whether applying and getting approved/denied, assignement of available CLs, increase of CLs etc.) do you labeled them (good, not so good, etc.) based on your positive/negative experience with your other CC issuers or based on what others had/not had similar or difference experience? 

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That's a really vague question.  To some degree yes but I don't assess creditors based solely on comparison of approvals, limits and APRS.  AmEx approved me for a CL of about half of what Chase approved me for.  Discover approved me for a CL of about half of what AmEx approved me for.  I find them all "good" and useful to me.  Since then AmEx and Discover have doubled thier limits.  Had I merely dismissed as "bad" because of the initial CL's and closed them out I'd be missing out today.  Granted YMMV bt don't place all the blame on the creditors.  Your credit and your income also play major roles in these decisions.

[s_haliz]

Thank you for sharing your prespective. 

[s_haliz]

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@takeshi74 wrote:

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@s_haliz wrote:

We have had applied many times CCs - whether it is store CCc, or general CCs. Often times we may get denied. Then thought comes to our mind that I have already xx numbers of CCs from yy number of credit issuers. How can they deny me?

---

Start with the reasons for denial cited in the letters that the creditors send to you if you want to understand why you're being denied and what you can do.

You can never just assume that creditor A will approve you or for the same limit, APR, etc as creditor B.  Creditors have varying underwriting critieria.  Additionally, your credit may have changed since the last creditor approved you.

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@s_haliz wrote:

So when you judge these CCs on any decision (whether applying and getting approved/denied, assignement of available CLs, increase of CLs etc.) do you labeled them (good, not so good, etc.) based on your positive/negative experience with your other CC issuers or based on what others had/not had similar or difference experience? 

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That's a really vague question.  To some degree yes but I don't assess creditors based solely on comparison of approvals, limits and APRS.  AmEx approved me for a CL of about half of what Chase approved me for.  Discover approved me for a CL of about half of what AmEx approved me for.  I find them all "good" and useful to me.  Since then AmEx and Discover have doubled thier limits.  Had I merely dismissed as "bad" because of the initial CL's and closed them out I'd be missing out today.  Granted YMMV bt don't place all the blame on the creditors.  Your credit and your income also play major roles in these decisions.

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Thank you for sharing your perspective. The points I had put forward are really perceived reflection our own psycology. We all have certain expectations based on our own experience/based on similar situation elsewhere in our life. Let me give you a very simple example: Say you are going to Bank to do some transation. And the rep. is new on top of that there is a very long line up and as a result, it had taken 30 minutes instead of 5-7 minutes normal as you used to do in other instances. Now definitely our brain is going to benchmark this recent experience with similar type of experience in the same bank and/or other bank...And we may construde a jusdement. Like, this bank is aweful....I have to wait 3o minutes to just do a simple transaction. 

You may notice literally 100s of post wherein users are describing like, oh so and so card issuers are horrible for so and so reason....In positive way, so and so card issuer had been great for me for this.......reasons. 

[longtimelurker]

For me, all about rewards.   So I don't really care about CL/CLI/APR unless changing it helps (as with Blue Cash).  

So when I applied for my Sallie Mae, I got a small (relative to my other cards) CL of $5K, but since the max I can usefully put on that card is $1,250 a month, that is fine.   Now if asked, I will tell people not to necessarily expect huge CLs from Barclays, but that is sort of useless advice based only on my experiences (and one out of three times, Barclays did give me a large CL!)

[s_haliz]

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@longtimelurker wrote:

For me, all about rewards.   So I don't really care about CL/CLI/APR unless changing it helps (as with Blue Cash).  

So when I applied for my Sallie Mae, I got a small (relative to my other cards) CL of $5K, but since the max I can usefully put on that card is $1,250 a month, that is fine.   Now if asked, I will tell people not to necessarily expect huge CLs from Barclays, but that is sort of useless advice based only on my experiences (and one out of three times, Barclays did give me a large CL!)

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Thank you for sharing your perspective. I am like you as well. Its all about rewards. However I have to confess that for really a long time (10+ years), I did not pay attention to declining rewards of my BoA Elite Rewards card. It started at 1% rewards (in form of gift cards from retail, dining, hotels, etc.) back in 2001-2002. They keep shrinking to an extent that now its app. 0.68% and choice of vendors for rewards had been shrunked too.....On couple occasions in past when I had complained to them, they advised me to switch to BoA Cash Back type card for 1% cash rewards. I was never impressed. But on a positive note, I have a largest CL because of long tenure with them. 

Lately I have learned about CapitalOne QS and Chase Freedom. Both of them are in a position to handily beating my current BoA card when it comes to rewards. Though their both combined CL is less than my BoA card alone! But I am OK with that. Since I don't forsee to top my limit. 

[nachoslibres]

I only get cards that are going to give me the highest return rate on the spend I was already going to make, and I only care about CL's if it is going to keep me from being able to put my purchases on the card (or makes it to where I have to pay the card several times a month).

With that said I've never been denied for a card or for a requested CLI.  Of course it's not like I've done tons of applications or requests for CLI's either.