Secured Discover It CLI with my own funds/Conversation with Discover Rep

[Anonymous]

I have had my Discover It Chrome Secured card for 11 months. Back in June of 2016 I dropped $500 on it as my security deposit. Thus, my CL is only $500.

I am thinking of adding $1,000 to that deposit so my CL will be $1,500 instead of just $500. Then, when I finally graduate to an unsecured card, my CL will be at least $1,500 and I can grow with it faster.

If it helps, I have read elsewhere that Discover soft pulls EX when considering graduating a secured card to an unsecured card. The unofficial EX FICO 8 score they are allegedly looking for is 650 or higher when making that decision (and, of course, income, recent baddies, etc). I am currently at 639 on my EX FICO 8 score as of 05/28/2017.

I am guessing by the end of July I will be close to or above 650, and that will also be my 12th month (edit: 12th billing cycle) of excellent history with Discover.

I think it is pretty strategic to add the $1,000. I can afford it, but I just don't know if it will screw up anything for finally graduating to an unsecured card.

Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

So, I decided to call Discover and do the $1,000 CLI on my secured card. It should be added within 8 days.

The rep was awesome. I go into more detail in my personal monthly update thread, but here is a snapshot of our discussion.

She asked why I was calling, said I wanted to increase CLI on my secured card. She asked some questions about income, assets, rent/own, and other TLs. Then, after I was approved for the $1,000 increase we talked for about 20 mins about credit improvement.

She said, in order, this is how to graduate from the secured to unsecured Discover It card:

1a. Low debt to income ratio.

1b. Excellent payment history with NO TLs reporting more than 30% AT ANY POINT during the billing cycle. If you do need to use more than 30%, then PIF before it reaches 30%, then after the payment posts go ahead and continue to use the card. NEVER let ANY lender report a high balance that is greater than 30%, it is important.

2. Other TLs. While considering your CL, Discover looks at your other TLs and their respective CLs. If your CLs are high and your debt to income ratio is bad, then Discover is probably going to ding you and not graduate you (or even approve you for a secured card at all).

3. Retail cards suck. If your highest CL is a retail card (mine is Best Buy), then try to get them to reduce your CL. According to her, Discover is really picky about letting people with non-excellent credit have too much CL across all of that person's cards. (note: to be honest, I'm kind of skeptical of this one, but it also makes sense that lenders don't want to give people too high of a CL when they have multiple other cards).

So, she highly recommended me to not apply for any new cards until my secured card finally graduates. She looked into  my account and said everything looks excellent except for a few months where they reported a higher than 30% usage. Even though my balance never reached 30% on the cut date, my balance at some point was over 30%. And thast is noted.