Score Question - Limits too high?

[Felix9]

I have two CC's, Amex and Citi, which I pay off every month in full and make sure to keep their utilization between the 1-9% range when they report.  I recently applied for a new CC for the first time in like years (Chase Reserve) and ran MyFico before to see what I was looking at.  Came up with Equifax: 841, TransUnion:  835, and Experian: 843.  My question is are my two CC limits ($17,100 and $12,300 respectively) too high?.  It's HIGHLY unlikely that I will ever come close to needing that amount of charge capacity, is it worth getting them lowered?  Will lowering it ding or help my Score?  Thanks in advance!

[SouthJamaica]

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@Felix9 wrote:

I have two CC's, Amex and Citi, which I pay off every month in full and make sure to keep their utilization between the 1-9% range when they report.  I recently applied for a new CC for the first time in like years (Chase Reserve) and ran MyFico before to see what I was looking at.  Came up with Equifax: 841, TransUnion:  835, and Experian: 843.  My question is are my two CC limits ($17,100 and $12,300 respectively) too high?.  It's HIGHLY unlikely that I will ever come close to needing that amount of charge capacity, is it worth getting them lowered?  Will lowering it ding or help my Score?  Thanks in advance!

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I don't see any point in reducing the credit limits. And yes it could ding your score.

[NRB525]

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@Felix9 wrote:

I have two CC's, Amex and Citi, which I pay off every month in full and make sure to keep their utilization between the 1-9% range when they report.  I recently applied for a new CC for the first time in like years (Chase Reserve) and ran MyFico before to see what I was looking at.  Came up with Equifax: 841, TransUnion:  835, and Experian: 843.  My question is are my two CC limits ($17,100 and $12,300 respectively) too high?.  It's HIGHLY unlikely that I will ever come close to needing that amount of charge capacity, is it worth getting them lowered?  Will lowering it ding or help my Score?  Thanks in advance!

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If you lower the limts, all you will be doing is lowering this range to maintain your scores.

[Anonymous]

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@Felix9 wrote:

I have two CC's, Amex and Citi, which I pay off every month in full and make sure to keep their utilization between the 1-9% range when they report.  I recently applied for a new CC for the first time in like years (Chase Reserve) and ran MyFico before to see what I was looking at.  Came up with Equifax: 841, TransUnion:  835, and Experian: 843.  My question is are my two CC limits ($17,100 and $12,300 respectively) too high?.  It's HIGHLY unlikely that I will ever come close to needing that amount of charge capacity, is it worth getting them lowered?  Will lowering it ding or help my Score?  Thanks in advance!

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The ONLY way reducing your credit lines would ding your score is if it caused your utilization to increase. Other than that it WILL NOT ding your score.

[Anonymous]

Donny is right.  Lowering your credit limit(s) will not hurt your scores (assuming you can still easily keep your utilization < 9%) since size of CL is not a scoring factor in the FICO models.

But the discouragement you are getting from SouthJ and NRB is right too, in the sense that there is no advantage to you in seeking to lower your CLs either.  (Unless you perceive yourself as a spending addict and feel that high CLs put you at risk of getting into trouble.)  Basically they are saying "Why do that?"

Bear in mind that in some (non-FICO) scoring models, average credit limit is a scoring factor (the higher your ACL the better for you, though there is no advantage once you have an ACL > 10.5k.)  This is true for the models used by the insurance industry and also Vantage Score.

So while I applaud you for not chasing the Holy Grail of ever bigger and bigger CLs (no advantage to doing that), there's certainly no advantage I can see in deliberately trying to lower them either.

[Anonymous]

Also a response to the OP in asking the question as to whether or not his current combined limits are "too high" since he's considering another card.  No, they aren't.  Your combined limits currently are just under $30k.  I don't know what your income is, but whatever it is multiply it by 2X and that may be the point where you'd have to start worrying about whether your combined limits are too high.  I say may be the point because there are people on here with 3X-4X their income in combined credit limits.  I'd venture to guess that 2X your income is quite a bit greater than $30k in credit limits, so you have plenty of room to grow your limits and/or add new lines of credit.