Orchard Rant! Feel free to chime in

[MsCreditSavvy]

A friend of mine calls me and says she received an auto CLI of $300 on her Orchard Bank Card. And get this, she has a 30 day late from April! What? Me on the other hand. I have 2 Orchard cards. Never late and I charge something every other month or so just to show activity and PIF. One with a whopping $300 and AF of $59 since 2007 that I plan to cancel before the next AF hits in December. The other at $900 (started at $500) since 2006 also AF of $59. I forgot to cancel this one in June before the fee hit! Ugh! 

[Wolf3]

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@MsCreditSavvy wrote:

A friend of mine calls me and says she received an auto CLI of $300 on her Orchard Bank Card. And get this, she has a 30 day late from April! What? Me on the other hand. I have 2 Orchard cards. Never late and I charge something every other month or so just to show activity and PIF. One with a whopping $300 and AF of $59 since 2007 that I plan to cancel before the next AF hits in December. The other at $900 (started at $500) since 2006 also AF of $59. I forgot to cancel this one in June before the fee hit! Ugh! 

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IMO,  the charge something every other month strategy is not conducive to CLI. 

[mxp114]

What works? Charging monthly but never exceed 10% of your CL?

[-Cain-]

You can charge way more than 10%, what's recommended is leaving your util at less than 10%.

[Anonymous]

Better chance at CLI if you use the card as much as possible. Either PIF, or leave util at less than 10%. If you charged more than 10% of util, pay it down under 10% before the statement cuts so only <10% is reported.

[cd2004]

I have called 2 times in the past 4 yrs trying to get a CLI from my orchard card. I gave up and just stick with the 300 CL

[snowangel]

I've gotten $20 CLI (seems so insulting) in 4 years.  Plan on closing this one within the next few months before the new AF hits.

[Anonymous]

I, too, just noticed I got an automatic $200 CLI from Orchard Bank. There weren't any real tricks to it, but I can tell you guys how I utilized my Orchard CC if it can give you some insight into their methodology!

-I got the card in January, have never paid late or missed a payment

-I have never made a purchase that would account for more than 50% of my CL

-I always made only the minimum payment, with the exception of June, when I PIF. In July, money was tight, so I put another large purchase on the card.

-I use the card very, very sparingly--there were a couple of large purchases I put on the card when money was tight, and that's what I have been paying off--so no monthly activity appearing

-My CU for this card has hovered consistently around 35%, which I am ok with, since I have very low utilization on my other cards, and I wanted to keep a balance on this one to build payment history and boost my credit. It will be paid off in about 6 months, and at that point I no longer plan to keep much of a balance, if any, on the card.

Other factors that may have played a role:

-My student loans were consolidated last month, which resulted in a 30 point FICO increase (my FAKOs went up 60+, not that those matter)

-Out of curiosity, I signed up for their CreditKeeper service which was charged to my Orchard card. I would hate to think that had any sway in their decision to increase my credit limit, but you never know.