topic Re: Juggling credit limits.... anyone have experience with this? in Credit Cards

Juggling credit limits.... anyone have experience with this?

Fitzgibbons — Tue, 17 May 2016 13:57:08 GMT

So, i applied for a discover card and chase freedom card about 5 months ago.

I was approved for both.

$500 limit with discover

$4,500 limit with chase.

At 3 months they both gave me an automatic CLI. So now i'm at:

$1,000 discover

$5,500 chase.

The thing is, i like discover card more as a company and would like to use it as my primary card, but the limit is so low.

I don't want to ping my credit, so what i'm thinking about doing is putting a low cap on the chase card this month, and hopefully at the 6 month review for discover i get a much higher automatic CLI, due to "freeing up space" with my chase card, without requesting it.

Does anyone have experience with something like this?

Re: Juggling credit limits.... anyone have experience with this?

takeshi74 — Tue, 17 May 2016 13:59:24 GMT

CLI's are determined based on what your credit profile and your income qualify for at time of consideration. Those are compared to a creditor/product's underwriting criteria.

Your entire credit profile is considered. Limiting use of your Chase card isn't going to get you a CLI from Discover in and of itself. Revolving utilization is a factor that falls under Amounts Owed for FICO scoring:

http://www.myfico.com/crediteducation/whatsinyourscore.aspx

...but there are many other factors at play as well. Additionally, the above is just for FICO scoring and does not cover a given creditor/product's specific underwriting criteria.

Identify the issues with your credit profile and work on addressing them. The initial $500 limit from Discover indicates that they had concerns with your credit profile but the CLi from them is a good sign. Additional CLI's will come as your credit profile continutes to improve.

Re: Juggling credit limits.... anyone have experience with this?

Fitzgibbons — Tue, 17 May 2016 13:58:24 GMT

So the credit limit on my chase card doesn't affect my discover card?

Re: Juggling credit limits.... anyone have experience with this?

takeshi74 — Tue, 17 May 2016 14:04:03 GMT

Not directly and not on its own.

Again, limits factor into revolving utilization. Revolving utilization falls under Amounts Owed. FICO scoring is not the only consideration for a creditor when determining the limit or CLI that you qualify for. That makes limits just one consideration among many. Don't miss the forest because you're focusing on just one tree.

You seem to be assuming that all creditors see you as qualifying for $X total credit and that if you reduce a limit with one that you can get an increase with another. That's not how it works. Each creditor/product has its own criteria. Each can be willing to extend different amounts of credit to you. Lowering a limit with one will not necessarily lead to an increase with another.

If you want CLI's then identify and address the issues with your credit profile.

Re: Juggling credit limits.... anyone have experience with this?

Fitzgibbons — Tue, 17 May 2016 14:04:51 GMT

right, yes. Im careful with my credit and keep utilization low on both cards.

I am looking at the forest at all times, but for the moment i'm curious about this one tree and what my odds of success are.

I don't want to put a low cap on the chase card, just to get another $500 increase on discover and shoot myself in the foot

Re: Juggling credit limits.... anyone have experience with this?

Fitzgibbons — Tue, 17 May 2016 14:24:50 GMT

And to clarify further, i know whats wrong with my profile. I have a few aging derogatories, and have basically exhausted my options to get them removed sensibly.... i'm going to continue sending goodwill letters, but its more than likely going to boil down to them decaying with more time.

Im just trying to finagle it so i can use the card i want the most until then.

Re: Juggling credit limits.... anyone have experience with this?

Anonymous — Tue, 17 May 2016 15:11:36 GMT

Discover simply takes longer for awesome gains. 9 months to a year gets the Big increases compared to cap1. Chase may have given you a better start limit but its not moving.

Re: Juggling credit limits.... anyone have experience with this?

Fitzgibbons — Tue, 17 May 2016 15:14:48 GMT

Really? Chase already gave me a 1k increase. Is that not large?

Re: Juggling credit limits.... anyone have experience with this?

Anonymous — Tue, 17 May 2016 15:24:17 GMT

Fitzgibbons, I think what you're missing is not focusing so much on the CLI, that will come in due time but there's other factors that play into it as other posters were saying. It's a YMMV thing for every one of us and no two profiles are the same. With Discover since that's your lower limit you might be shooting yourself in the foot with focusing so hard on utilization. Some lower limit cards may be a "show us some real use" type scenarios to see the bigger CLIs....Try shifting some of your Chase spend to your Discover, even with the $1k limit, then you would be wanting to still keep overall utilization low but on that Discover, you would do that with more frequest payments. Show Discover why you deserve a CLI on the higher side and that you love the card for your overall spend goals.

Re: Juggling credit limits.... anyone have experience with this?

dragontears — Tue, 17 May 2016 15:53:11 GMT

@Fitzgibbons wrote:
right, yes. Im careful with my credit and keep utilization low on both cards.

I am looking at the forest at all times, but for the moment i'm curious about this one tree and what my odds of success are.

I don't want to put a low cap on the chase card, just to get another $500 increase on discover and shoot myself in the foot

with your current limit $500 is 50% of your limit so it is not a bad increase at this time. You have not had these cards that long so be a little patient, for me Discover would not increase my CL for 9 months and now my discover sits at 28.8k and I have had it for just over 2 years.

What I did with discover was every month once I made my payment I requested a CLI (as long as it had the SP verbage), some months it was a yes some months it was a no.

To this day my chase card has the same CL as I was approved for after 2 years. If I was you I wouldn't be expecting many CLI from chase in the future (you could be one of the lucky few but don't count on it)

Re: Juggling credit limits.... anyone have experience with this?

Fitzgibbons — Tue, 17 May 2016 16:36:13 GMT

Well, thats a good idea.... ill just use the discover card to 25% of my limit at a time and pay it off as needed.

And this wont show as high utilization?

I wonder if i can automate this with them.... just tell them to make it so that any time i hit $250 on my card its automatically withdrawn on my card.

Anyone ever try that?

Re: Juggling credit limits.... anyone have experience with this?

Anonymous — Tue, 17 May 2016 23:39:16 GMT

@Fitzgibbons wrote:
Well, thats a good idea.... ill just use the discover card to 25% of my limit at a time and pay it off as needed.

And this wont show as high utilization?

I wonder if i can automate this with them.... just tell them to make it so that any time i hit $250 on my card its automatically withdrawn on my card.

Anyone ever try that?

I've never seen a CC company with any kind of auto pay option other than pay either the min when due or statement balance when due.

Also, (my opinion, which might be only worth as much as you paid for it) don't worry about not going over 25%. My experience has been that Discover likes usage. If you keep it under 25%, they may not see a reason to give you more. The only time that you need to worry about paying it down is before the statement cuts. I'd let it get much higher than 25% if I were you (and you have the spend). BUT, along with that, you have to keep an eye on the limit.

Generally while you can't have it auto-paid when it hits a certain amount, most lenders have the ability to set up an email or text alert when your balance gets to $X. What you choose to set that to depends on how many/how large of charges you're likely to incur AND how quickly Discover processes your payments. The good news is you have Chase to use if Discover doesn't process as quickly as you like.

Example: If most of your spend is $50 and under at a time, maybe set the alert at $750. If your spend can often be in the $100-$150 range, then you might want it set at more like $600.

Re: Juggling credit limits.... anyone have experience with this?

Anonymous — Wed, 18 May 2016 01:25:08 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Fitzgibbons wrote:
Well, thats a good idea.... ill just use the discover card to 25% of my limit at a time and pay it off as needed.

And this wont show as high utilization?

I wonder if i can automate this with them.... just tell them to make it so that any time i hit $250 on my card its automatically withdrawn on my card.

Anyone ever try that?
I've never seen a CC company with any kind of auto pay option other than pay either the min when due or statement balance when due.

Also, (my opinion, which might be only worth as much as you paid for it) don't worry about not going over 25%. My experience has been that Discover likes usage. If you keep it under 25%, they may not see a reason to give you more. The only time that you need to worry about paying it down is before the statement cuts. I'd let it get much higher than 25% if I were you (and you have the spend). BUT, along with that, you have to keep an eye on the limit.

Generally while you can't have it auto-paid when it hits a certain amount, most lenders have the ability to set up an email or text alert when your balance gets to $X. What you choose to set that to depends on how many/how large of charges you're likely to incur AND how quickly Discover processes your payments. The good news is you have Chase to use if Discover doesn't process as quickly as you like.

Example: If most of your spend is $50 and under at a time, maybe set the alert at $750. If your spend can often be in the $100-$150 range, then you might want it set at more like $600.

^^^^This is on point...Usage counts for everything...Usage with payments count for more....Even if you manage to go over 25% UTL, making sure you have it paid and the payment posts before the statement cuts is what you want....So if this month I spend $3500 but say my limit is only $5k, I want to make sure my payment post before the statement cuts to bring it well below that 70% UTL...I would want the statement to cut with no more than $1500 or less as the balance of the $5k limit...

I hope you work it out OP...But to be most honest....playing all hands on deck with managing your credit can be nerve wrecking for most. Read most of the Discover CLI posts...A lot of people love the card and those that do, tend to lend towards using it for most of their spend or at least the rotating categories to maximize the cash back (this is what I would be working towards overall)