Massive CL Question

[Anonymous]

I have 90k and don't want it. I'd rather have 4-5 heavy hitters in the 18000 range. My store cards are double and triple the limits of my American Express chase discover Barclays and so on. You can't do emergency car repairs with your Lowes card and you can't fly someone home with your j.crew

[kdm31091]

Exactly. The obsession with huge limits on single store use cards puzzles me.

[DeeBee78]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I have 90k and don't want it. I'd rather have 4-5 heavy hitters in the 18000 range. My store cards are double and triple the limits of my American Express chase discover Barclays and so on. You can't do emergency car repairs with your Lowes card and you can't fly someone home with your j.crew

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Agreed and laughing at your examples, but for some of us builders those padded store card limits help keep overall utilization in check. After all my new balances report, I'll be at 15.23% utilization  Without the store cards, I would be at 35.51%

I've already outlined plans to close several of the store cards when I get a CSP approval, as one $5k+ limit will easily replace four store cards I barely use. Someday down the road, I'll even close my massive $30k Barney's card.

I would like to point out that several store cards are more beneficial to the customer than most major cards. With Amazon, I can get 0% financing any time I want. I may not be able to use it to fly someone home, but I can buy an unlocked iPhone and pay it off over six to twelve months without paying one cent in interest. 

[Anonymous]

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@kdm31091 wrote:
Exactly. The obsession with huge limits on single store use cards puzzles me.

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Agreed fordguy and kdm.

[longtimelurker]

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@DeeBee78 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
I have 90k and don't want it. I'd rather have 4-5 heavy hitters in the 18000 range. My store cards are double and triple the limits of my American Express chase discover Barclays and so on. You can't do emergency car repairs with your Lowes card and you can't fly someone home with your j.crew

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Agreed and laughing at your examples, but for some of us builders those padded store card limits help keep overall utilization in check. After all my new balances report, I'll be at 15.23% utilization  Without the store cards, I would be at 35.51%

I've already outlined plans to close several of the store cards when I get a CSP approval, as one $5k+ limit will easily replace four store cards I barely use. Someday down the road, I'll even close my massive $30k Barney's card.

I would like to point out that several store cards are more beneficial to the customer than most major cards. With Amazon, I can get 0% financing any time I want. I may not be able to use it to fly someone home, but I can buy an unlocked iPhone and pay it off over six to twelve months without paying one cent in interest. 

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Yes, there is a tendency here to make black/white distinctions, such store cards vs "prime" etc.     Basically, ANY store card can be useful if you shop there and is has some rewards better than a generic bank card   (e.g. a store card that gives 0.25% off every purchase wouldn't pass that test!)     A lot of the distaste here comes from use of the Shopping Cart Trick, where people get ANY store card, whether they ever shop there or not.    While there are UTIL (and other score) arguements for why that MAY be a good idea in very limited rebuilding cases, it often isn't, and then store cards in general get tainted from this!

[Anonymous]

I dont normally advocate someone open a store card. But I did help two family members scores pretty significantly with utilization, which made later approvals limits and APRs higher/lower.  Did a few bonton cards because they actually shop there and use the rewards, so the padding is an added bonus.  Have also got a few people to take a HP to get massive CLI on carecredit even if they arent using it (myself included).

I don't understand some of the store card hype though. The initial coupon can easily be negotiated without applying. Use your phone to google.  If its a store you shop at monthly like kohls where they ritually offer 30% off for card holders, I get that.  But wasting 1 HP for a $500 limit and 10% off........ Well we all make mistakes. My sams card was probably a mistake. $50 gift card. But at least with sams I may one day get the elusive MC upgrade, and the CL continues to grow.

In my eyes, the easiest way to big CL is opening a venture or two and combine.  This hasn't went on for very long so there aren't any data points on how much longer capital one is going to actually allow those limits to stay that high.  I also see credit unions issuing big limits right off the bat and need meticulously groomed applications with proof of income. It is a real possibility though. They can reduce the limit anytime they want.  But they are smart company.

I dont think I would want a 100k credit line.  I mean I guess if I bought cars more often or flipped houses. I would rather split up a transaction across a few cards.

I guess it would be a nice luxury. Time to buy a new car, throw the entire thing on there for a $50 fee ( thats the charge where I live) and then worry about moving monies around later or BT'ing for 0% APR etc.

[Anonymous]

I do want to add that I am keeping most of my store Card because most of the ones I have selected offer 0% financing which is an advantage over anything.

I also don't think my scores recover as quickly if I had stuck to my guns and kept only master Card and visas around. Clearly not my philosophy either. Just saying if I had the choice I would move my store Card limits around to be more effective in the first place with synchrony, which they don't do, and secondly I wish the big bankcards i do use would reflect higher limits to some of the store Card. that's all. But yes I was proud of my little j.crew joke, I use a very similar excuse with the wife when I buy myself tools you can't always do a home repair or a car repair with the Home Improvement credit card and so on

[kdm31091]

Opening two ventures just to have a large limit....eh. not my thing. Thats 6 HPs for a large limit on a card that has an AF, and there are free alternatives with the same rewards. To each their own

[Anonymous]

Patience and and paying on time.

A year and a half ago I'd only had four credit lines. Three credit cards and a store card. One of the CC I had closed years earlier. Total CL of about $15k.

Since then as I've learned more about how to properly build credit from this forum, I've added 12 more tradelines with a total CL of about $150,000 which is almost 3x income.

I think the most important thing has been paying more than minimum and paying on time all the time. I've also mostly kept below 15% utilization and often less than 10% with 0% interest offers, BT and introductory offers. I've been pretty lucking in getting pretty decent limits. About two thirds of my cards are over $10k each with Amex being highest at $24k. I've reached a plateau of sorts just about having all the rewards cards I can handily utilize that cover a large area of my spending.

Just be patient. The first time I applied for a store card I was denied. I was then denied for a real credit card and so I finally took out a secured loan with my bank. I gave them $500 cash and got a $500 loan (what a deal!) and paid it off over six months. That got my foot in the door and since then I've never had a late or missed payment or a derogatory of any kind on any loan/CC I've ever had.

I never kept track of my credit scores until the last year or so but I figure up until then I was in the low to mid 700s. Since then I've gone to a high of 793 with EQ. Currently I'm at EQ 790 TU 765 & EX 764. Myfico says if I make steady payments on my current tradelines for a year I'll have scores in the 830 to 840 range. Not something I imagined several years ago and it wasn't very hard. Get a couple tradelines every few months, use them and pay them off on time is all I did.

[Anonymous]

patience !