I guess it was my turn for AA and CLD from Barclay Ring

[Gmood1]

1000+
I just closed my Barclay's Arrival plus last week. They offered a $2000 SP increase and 0% for 12 or 18 months, I can't remember. I declined and showed them the door! Good luck OP and keep it moving.

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry to hear this happened to you. I'm thinking it was the 60% utilization that concerned them, however. How long have you had that high of a utilization on their card, and would you mind sharing your score? Thanks

[Anonymous]

Sorry to hear about that.

So far I have had luck with Barclays but everything ont his forum alwasy worries me.

Curious to hear what they have to say when you call in.

[FeeBear]

Hey Hum,

       To answer your first question, I was in the 30% to 40% for a while then I did a balance transfer from a card that I no longer wanted which pushed me 70% about 4 months ago. I have used the card very heavily (because it is my personal card) on the months I don't use the card I paid 2.5 to 3 times the min. On the months I did use it I would pay what I charged and plus 2x the min. For the most part the balance was going down about 2.5% a month (wasn't in an crazy rush to pay it off because it was a low interest CC).

       As far as my scores All Three Credit bureaus have me in the last 4 months from 760ish to 710 to Today 760's. You can see on my signature that I don't have crazy limits (hover over my cards).  As a Consultant, I have to foot my Air Travel and Hotel and car and food for trips to London or Sydney or Paris. I have 5 of my credit cards dedicated for work related expenses. It sometimes take my company up to 30 days to pay me for expenses so the credit agency don't always report me paying the balance down for a while.

Fee

[FeeBear]

Hey Miado,

         I just got off the phone with them. The gentleman I was talking to was nice enough and he had questions for me. I had to laugh about his company's concern. So he asked me the standard question, how much do you make? 240K, how long have you been doing your work? 23yrs. Then he hit me about the "flag" We see you have an unsecure loan with a balance of 16K plus you Ring card of 18K, we were concern. What was the purpose of the loan? I stated for the record the loan was older than my Ring card by two months and it was for my move from Massachusetts to Texas. The loan was 25K to start and it was for 3yrs, at the rate of payment I should be done in 2yrs instead of the 3yrs. I told him I would rather pay 4% on a personal loan to move instead of putting it on a credit card for 8.25% or more.

         He put me on hold and came back 10 mins later and restored my original credit line. I will say this has shaken my confidence with them, I will probably not charge anymore on the card and concentrate on paying it off.

Fee 

[Anonymous]

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@FeeBear wrote:

         He put me on hold and came back 10 mins later and restored my original credit line.

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Barclay has traditionally been very good about restoring credit lines when asked, according to reports on the board, as long as you don't have anything serious going on in your profile.

It's their computer and algorithm doing these automatic reductions, and usually reaching out to a reasonable person will help as long as there is not a major problem in your profile.

I think having an 18k balance on their card would spook a reasonable number of lenders. I'm sorry it happened to you, though, and glad your limit was restored.

[Anonymous]

Glad to see that it all worked out. Interesting I hadn't read any of the restored credit lines threads, I seem to always just read the ones that AA or CLD. Good to know just in case.

[takeshi74]

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@FeeBear wrote:

To answer your first question, I was in the 30% to 40% for a while then I did a balance transfer from a card that I no longer wanted which pushed me 70% about 4 months ago.

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60-70% is high and 4 months in that range is a bit of time.  The rest of your credit profile is certainly a consideration as well.

[Klesko]

We all know how skittish Barclays can be. 

I have a Aviator Silver card with them 6k CL. I did a BT of 3k on it about 8 months ago which was 18 months 0% intrest. My overall util is about 6%. Anyway out of the blue they CLD me to 5k with a balance of 2700. I called and talked to the CSR and he asked why I was only making minimum payments for so long. I asked him why in the world would I be paying more than the minimum on a 0% loan? He came back with "oh ya that wouldn't make sense" and then restored my limit. 

One really good thing about Barclays is their CSR people are honest and pretty easy to talk to compared to other places.