Which BoA or Citi card should I apply for?

[Anonymous]

I want a good limit Citi or BoA card. Which one should I get? I'm also not planning to use it a lot, but I don't want the limit to be slashed by small usage. ?re there any suggestions?

[SCF]

Hi Lexa,

My highest limit card ($6900) is from Citi, it started at a limit of $4300 and got generous increases at 6 and 12 months.  I also have a BoA card, and my limit is more modest, although still nice ($2000) and it started at $1500 about 12 months ago.  Based on my experience, I would reccomend that you apply for a Citi card, because they seem to be more generous with the CLIs and I haven't had any problem with them reducing my limit even though I've never had a balance of over $1000 on the card.  Hopefully some others will share their thoughts as well.  In the end though, if you take care of the card, I think you could wind up with a good limit with either Citi or BoA.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

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Lexa wrote:
I want a good limit Citi or BoA card. Which one should I get? I'm also not planning to use it a lot, but I don't want the limit to be slashed by small usage. ?re there any suggestions?

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I have a $10k card from BoA. In spite of their current (precarious) financial standing, they've been good to me, and I've seen no AA. I've been getting auto CLIs every 4 to 6 months for the last year. But, I use the card a lot. When I didn't use it a lot, it didn't get slashed, but I also didn't get any CLIs. BoA *seems* to give a good deal of weight to the size of of the credit lines of your other bank cards when making decisions about how much credit to grant. If you have existing major bank CC in the range of what you'd want from BoA, then you probably have a fair enough shot if you get approved.

It's my understanding, however, that Citi (as a very general rule) is far more generous than BoA with initial credit lines. But, both Citi and BoA are in slash and burn mode for the time being, so what we knew before about their habits and their likes might be out the window.  

[athensguy]

The Citi Forward card is nice. I think I'll apply for one of them myself in a few months.