citibank CLI?

[Anonymous]

I've had this card for three years. It started out as a College Students Dividend MC and I just upgraded it to the Dividend World MC (card for the big boys even though it has reporting issues). I've been PIF fairly consistently and have put probably 27.5K through the card in this time. I got auto-approved for two cards for $1200 when I first started (pressed the submit button twice ... oops!) and combined them into one $2400 card. I got bumped up to $3200 last year and then to $3560 at which point I converted it to the World for a better. I have carried a balance for a few months but I am fully paid down now with the exception of the current statement balance which I will PIF when the bill comes due.

I've tried the LUV button and I get the form. Is complaining on the phone to Citi about my high PIF usage with little in the way of CLI (I mean really ... 27.5K PIF is much, much more than most college students spend on their cards...) an effective way of getting a CLI without a hard inq?

I need to wait for any new hard inqs until my big Amex starts to report ($7800) and until my util drops dramatically in the 1-9% range, which it will. These were the two reasons I was given for my Chase CLI decline - I had large statement balances reporting even though they were being PIF'd (which hurt my util), and I also only didn't have a large CL reporting (my Amex reported $3800, which was my biggest at the time).

I am currently using my cards much less for various reasons (this forum not being the least of them, thank you guys! I have to use credit responsibly and in small doses or else PIF before the statement cuts if I want to spend the money!).

Should I just wait until my big, old Amex shows up on the reports and then hit the LUV button? For me, with a credit history of just over 3 years, a $7800 credit line that is 2+ years old is really great for me and is a card I need to keep and treat VERY well. I also would like to apply for a new Citi card, the HHonors Visa Signature. I want to save my hard inq for that. I even meet the minimum income requirements on my own, so if my FICOs are in top form, I should qualify! I am also considering converting my Dividend World into the PremierPass, which I hear has wonderful benefits. a good idea, will they let me do that? I was also pre-approved for the CashReturns MC, but I don't think they'd let me convert that to a Visa if I qualified for that, would they?

Or should I just ask my mom to put me as an AU on a card or two that buoy her scores into the mid 800's, a 20 something year old Chase Visa and BoA MC. Well, she'll never do that, she wants me to build my credit all on my own *sigh*. my parents really do have wonderful credit. i think the interest must be genetic .

sorry for such a long-winded post! any advice would be much appreciated.

p.s. my other outstanding credit lines are a bank americard visa running a 3k limit with a tiny balance I allow to report (100$) and a chase freedom visa with the same limit, approximately same usage.

[Creditaddict]

Citi seems to be hard if the form asks for certain information and if just says click here with no info asked, it's soft.

I would wait for Amex to show and then apply

[Anonymous]

waiting for the CR's to report is so long and frustrating! especially when Amex is behind schedule on reporting

[Anonymous]

AmEx not reporting on time sounds like a really irritating issue. But a question... How do you know when they report? I'm going to purchase all three credit reports soon and man, it'd be such a bummer if I do that and I find out it isn't actually "up to date" if you know what I mean.

[Anonymous]

here's another enormous problem when you actually read your credit reports. large parts of mine are missing payment history "blocks" for cards I know I have been using and paying. I don't really know if these months have been recorded or not as using the card or having good payment. The reports differ between the bureaus of course. Some bureaus have me recorded as paying in particular months for particular cards whereas others have an ambiguous "no data available" reference in the boxes for several months in a row.

The second thing is I'm confused as to how cards as the same accounts, different numbers are reported. I have three different card numbers reported for my Citibank card, they all begin in 2005 and have three different periods of payment histories. I have no idea how this is supposed to be recorded correctly or if it is. It just doesn't seem like it.

Then I have a couple of cards which I closed and then re-opened which are recorded as either opened or closed incorrectly. I have a BankAmericard which was reported closed twice even though I'm using it right now and the tradeline it's on has been active since 2006.

This is not the sort of thing I personally would bother correcting, as it's not a baddie, and I have far more enjoyable things to do with my time. These sound like the sort of questions neither the CSR's at the banks and credit bureaus would be able to resolve, nor are they particularly important because they're not baddies.