topic Re: Combining Orchard Cards in Credit Cards

Combining Orchard Cards

laz98 — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 02:06:31 GMT

I don't even know if they will let me combine, but here is my question anyway.

I have an Orchard Gold & an Orchard Platinum. The Gold card has a higher limit but also a higher APR. The Platinum card is newer & has a lower limit, but it has a nice APR (8.9%).

Do you think they would let me add the Gold limit to the Platinum card, so I can take advantage of both a higher limit AND a lower APR?

For those who say APR doesn't matter, I do carry a balance, so APR matters to me.

Re: Combining Orchard Cards

Anonymous — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 02:58:13 GMT

laz98 wrote:
I don't even know if they will let me combine, but here is my question anyway.

I have an Orchard Gold & an Orchard Platinum. The Gold card has a higher limit but also a higher APR. The Platinum card is newer & has a lower limit, but it has a nice APR (8.9%).

Do you think they would let me add the Gold limit to the Platinum card, so I can take advantage of both a higher limit AND a lower APR?

For those who say APR doesn't matter, I do carry a balance, so APR matters to me.

They might, but keep in mind that when you combine Orchard cards, they do not guarantee that you will keep the full combined CL. For example, assuming you want to combine two cards, one with a $300 CL and one with a $500 CL, there is no guarantee that the CL on the combined card will be $800. It will be somewhere between $500 and $800, but you won't know exactly how much it will be until it's done, and then it will be too late to change it back if you don't like the results.

Re: Combining Orchard Cards

laz98 — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 03:00:52 GMT

they won't tell you what it's going to be? that's stupid!

Re: Combining Orchard Cards

Anonymous — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 03:04:58 GMT

laz98 wrote:
they won't tell you what it's going to be? that's stupid!

Welcome to the world of Orchard/HSBC! Nothing is as simple or straightforward as it seems like it should be.

Re: Combining Orchard Cards

Anonymous — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 03:17:58 GMT

i read about someone who combined a 2k card and a 1k card and ended up with a 1k card and a hard

Re: Combining Orchard Cards

laz98 — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 03:20:52 GMT

that's outrageous! i guess i'll just keep what i have.

Re: Combining Orchard Cards

jaysdad2k — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 05:12:21 GMT

I combined an Orchard Gold from 2006 with $500 and an Orchard Plat from 2007 with $300 this past May. I ended up with a Gold with the longer history and I got the $800 CLI. So, it went smoothly.

Last month they finally agreed to raise the gold to $1000, although it cost me $20. My APR is 9.9%, but I PIF.

Re: Combining Orchard Cards

laz98 — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 06:26:05 GMT

@jaysdad2k wrote:
I combined an Orchard Gold from 2006 with $500 and an Orchard Plat from 2007 with $300 this past May. I ended up with a Gold with the longer history and I got the $800 CLI. So, it went smoothly.

Last month they finally agreed to raise the gold to $1000, although it cost me $20. My APR is 9.9%, but I PIF.

Well, that's good to hear. To be fair to Orchard, I decided to email them & let them tell me what they will do. We'll see what they say.

Re: Combining Orchard Cards

GST2008 — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 18:23:45 GMT

When you get the email could you please share the results. I have a gold with 2.4k and a plat. w/2.2k and would love to combine them and keep the gold since the history is much older. Neither of them have a balance and I just keep them for reporting purposes, so it would be nice just to have one larger balance reporting cause they will not give me a cli (although maybe if i put more then ten dollars a month on them, it would help).

Re: Combining Orchard Cards

laz98 — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 23:08:27 GMT

This is the email that Orchard sent me:

Thank you for your recent inquiry regarding the consolidation of your
accounts.

In order for us to determine account eligibility, please provide the specific
account number you wish to retain along with the account number (s) you wish
to close.

We will review this information to ensure eligibility of this request and
notify you in writing.

I guess I will have to call them. I don't trust them NOT to consolidate the accounts if I just email them back. I definitely want to make sure it's in my best interest to do so, before I do.

I thought about it some more, though, & I probably won't combine them. My newer card has better terms (except for a monthly fee), but I would want to keep the history of my older card, which they probably won't let me do. So I guess I will just keep them separate.

Re: Combining Orchard Cards

GST2008 — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 01:55:05 GMT

Mine both have identical APRs of 12.9% so I would lose nothing that way. The plat. was an excellent offer when I first opened it, 18 months 0% APR, but they haven't increased it in that time and it's my lowest CL.

Re: Combining Orchard Cards

jaysdad2k — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:25:22 GMT

They sent me a one page request form to mail in. I did, and they combined in about a month. I called and it had apparently been done that day or the day before.

The closed account shows as "paid satisfactorily closed by consumer" and the payment history stops at April 08.

Message Edited by jaysdad2k on 11-10-2008 12:25 PM

Re: Combining Orchard Cards

TangMeister — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 22:46:57 GMT

Bumping this thread. Does anyone have anything to update or add?

I'm going to take the plunge and attempt to combine my two HSBC accounts....one Visa and one MC. One is one of their prime cards....the other is umm.....sorta not....but old as heck and maxed out on CLIs. They're sending the form, and I'm going to combine the old one into the newer, prime card, which is about 3 years old itself.

I know the age won't change on either, but I just want one HSBC card. They are too quick to close an inactive card these days.

Big question: Did they pull a hard inquiry for the combining? If so, I may just close the old one, and be done with it. I really don't want to take a hard inq just to *possibly* keep all my CL with HSBC through the merger. Thanks!

Re: Combining Orchard Cards

jaysdad2k — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 07:22:13 GMT

No, there was no hard inquiry when I combined. It seems to have gone smoothly for me.

Re: Combining Orchard Cards

TangMeister — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 20:25:37 GMT

@jaysdad2k wrote:
No, there was no hard inquiry when I combined. It seems to have gone smoothly for me.

Thanks!