@Anonymous wrote:To echo what others have said already, there is no 'great starting limit myth'. Some lenders are known to be more generous than others -- for example compare NFCU to AMEX. NFCU routinely gives solid starting limits to those with marginal scores while American Express is known to give awful limits like $500 or $1000 to even those with decent scores.
Exactly... But even within those "conservative" lenders, there is huge variance in how they few an individual's profile. For example, two months ago Elan Financial give me $1,800 SL, and this month, AMEX gave me $15,000. My actual FICO scored dropped a bit after Elan because of balances (all at 0%...) incurred over the holidays. NFCU Gave me ~$14,000 only after a recon a few months before that, and many people here reported lower $500-$1500 SL with them with better profiles than mine.
On the other side of the coin, Barclays is known for hating when you open new accounts after they approve you... I never had a problem with them, and before I learned they were "sensitive to new inquiries," I had already opened up several new cards wihtin about four months.
For all our efforts here, there's no one-size-fits-all interpretation of a creditor, although there IS enough anecdotal evidence gathered by enough users to make a pretty decent generalization of how a creditor will react to certain profiles.
There are clearly some cards from certain lenders where starting limits come on much higher than expected. Of course, each individual case will vary, and things beyond score are often important factors (income, other debts, other higher limits, even time at an address could be a factor).
For a while, Capial One was handing out a lot of $20-30k starting limits to people who had no other cards at the $10k level (I was one of these). I can't count how many times I've opened up an NFCU post and been shocked that they approved a card with $20-40k limit to people who had nothing higher than $5k. From what I can tell, almost every Avianca card has been approved for $25k - try finding a Citi DC (notoriously low starting CL) that started that high. I can remeber back to the NASA FCU and BBVA NBA Amex cards that were handing out massive limits.
Things change of course. NASA doesn't seem to be handing out great limits any more, haven't heard a peep about BBVA in months and even Capital One seems to have adjusted their structure a little. I certainly don't expect the Avianca gravy train to keep rolling, however NFCU seems to be steady as a rock. So no, high starting CL with certain cards is not a myth. Certain companies favor certain factors and each individual's score and profile will definitely influence the final result.
@Anonymous wrote:
happypill wrote: almost every Avianca card has been approved for $25kYou mean these? 25k on those?
https://www.lifemilescreditcard.com/WLInternet/avianca.aspx
Yep, those be the ones. If you do a quick search on the approvals board you'll get page after page of approvals within the past 2 months and nearly all are for $25k.