topic Re: Chase APR reduction fail, trying again! Any input? in Credit Cards

Chase APR reduction fail, trying again! Any input?

merlinflex — Fri, 04 May 2018 14:29:01 GMT

Just to update on my recent attempt to get my APRs reduced at Chase.

Chase Freedom: 20.49% (CL $10K/balance $1196.58) 2yrs old

Chase Ritz: 21.49% (CL $31K/balance $1788.22) 20 months old

Chase united: 21.49% (CL $27K/balance $1435.04) 20 months old

Called in the number on the back of card. Lady was nice, put me on hold after verification and looked at all 3 cards. Came back a min or so later and told me I had the lowest APR they could offer me. When I pressed that the website had listed 16.49 - 25.24 as the range and referred to my scores, she said it was not just based on FICO scores, but also length of time with Chase, other credit cards and their respecitve limits and balances, etc. 800+ across the board, and currently using 9% of my total credit limits which is around $600k+.

Oldest account is 25+ years (Amex NPSL) and newest account is Amex Platinum Delta (6/2017, $39.9K CL/CB $3168.86) Any thoughts on how to get Chase to budge? Maybe I called the wrong number as opposed to another number? I plan on calling Citi, and Amex later today on their cards. Maybe I should call another number instead of what is on the back of the card? TIA! Stats as of this morning are below:

Length of Credit History: 28 Years, 3 Months

Average Account Age: 6 Years, 5 Months

Citibank AA ($24K CL/CB 2200): 21.24APR

Citibank Diamond: ($15K CL/CB $899) 22.49APR

Capital one Venture: ($48K CL/CB $4009) 22.40APR

Penfed: ($50K CL/CB $1400) 12.24APR - Good

Total Visa: ($20K CL/CB $1187.25) 15.24APR - Good

BBVA: ($22K CL/CB $1663.46) 12.74APR - Good

Fidelity Visa: ($33.8K CL/CB $1980.01) 15.49APR - Good

Amex Blue: 21.49APR ($25K CL/CB $2244.90)

Amex ED: 14.49APR ($24.5K CL/CB $2139.79)- Good

Amex Delta: 19.24APR ($39.9K CL/CB $3168.86)

Barclay Arrival+: 16.49APR ($48.5K CL/CB $4817.96)

PenFed PLOC: 9.99% ($25CL/$2036.67)

Jumbo Mortgage: $602,574.34 balance/ Loan was $636,955.34. 38mos old. 20% down. 3.75% fixed rate. $4190 monthly payment (includes escrow taxes and insurance)

3 auto loans with PenFed, 2+ years old. all paid on time and rate is from 1.99 to 2.35% total of all loans is: $59,911.24. All paid on time

Re: Chase APR reduction fail, trying again! Any input?

simplynoir — Fri, 04 May 2018 14:30:41 GMT

Long story short Chase doesn't budge on their APRs. What you got on your approval is generally what you get stuck with.

Re: Chase APR reduction fail, trying again! Any input?

merlinflex — Fri, 04 May 2018 14:47:58 GMT

@simplynoir wrote:
Long story short Chase doesn't budge on their APRs. What you got on your approval is generally what you get stuck with.

Understood, not what I wanted to hear, but it is what it is. Any ideas on Citibank or Amex or Cap1? They are next on my hit list.

Re: Chase APR reduction fail, trying again! Any input?

FinStar — Fri, 04 May 2018 14:57:55 GMT

As mentioned upthread, Chase will not lower APRs upon request. They can lower the latter automatically based on periodic account reviews, but that's a rare event.

Capital One will be the same boat. However, they may offer promotional, limited-time offers from time to time but no permanent reductions.

You can try Citi and/or AMEX provided your accounts are elegible.

Re: Chase APR reduction fail, trying again! Any input?

K-in-Boston — Fri, 04 May 2018 15:00:33 GMT

Chase will sometimes lower APRs. Capital One never. Are the balances you've listed actual balances being carried, or just the current balances from spending during the current billing cycle? If you're carrying balances from month-to-month, most lenders won't lower your APR as there's not really any incentive for them to. With Amex and Citi, you can just hop on chat and ask them if there are offers to lower your APR. Note that with Citi, if they grant you a lower APR you would need to hop back on chat and keep asking until they eventually tell you no. For some reason if you're eligible for a big decrease in APR, they can't give it to you all in one shot.

Re: Chase APR reduction fail, trying again! Any input?

merlinflex — Fri, 04 May 2018 15:19:41 GMT

@K-in-Boston wrote:
Chase will sometimes lower APRs. Capital One never. Are the balances you've listed actual balances being carried, or just the current balances from spending during the current billing cycle? If you're carrying balances from month-to-month, most lenders won't lower your APR as there's not really any incentive for them to. With Amex and Citi, you can just hop on chat and ask them if there are offers to lower your APR. Note that with Citi, if they grant you a lower APR you would need to hop back on chat and keep asking until they eventually tell you no. For some reason if you're eligible for a big decrease in APR, they can't give it to you all in one shot.

So chatted with Citi just now, they said only one of my cards was eligible for about a 2% reduction. So I took it. It was the Citi Diamond Preferred and not the American Airlines one. I do tend to carry balances from month to month, but I make large payments. For Example, I just made a $3K+ payment to Amex BCP and $3K to PenFed. Leaving just a few hundred dollars. I do that generally with all my cards, except for one or two which I put some purchases and pay them down $1K each month, but then put on about $500 in charges again. So they come down. I can of course pay them all off down to zero, but understanding on my part was the where FICO was concerned, that might be good to go down to 0% utilization. I stay around 9% Utilization. Am I wrong?

Re: Chase APR reduction fail, trying again! Any input?

K-in-Boston — Fri, 04 May 2018 15:27:45 GMT

@merlinflex wrote:
So chatted with Citi just now, they said only one of my cards was eligible for about a 2% reduction. So I took it. It was the Citi Diamond Preferred and not the American Airlines one. I do tend to carry balances from month to month, but I make large payments. For Example, I just made a $3K+ payment to Amex BCP and $3K to PenFed. Leaving just a few hundred dollars. I do that generally with all my cards, except for one or two which I put some purchases and pay them down $1K each month, but then put on about $500 in charges again. So they come down. I can of course pay them all off down to zero, but understanding on my part was the where FICO was concerned, that might be good to go down to 0% utilization. I stay around 9% Utilization. Am I wrong?

Congrats on Citi! Keep asking them every day through chat until they tell you that you have no offers. I bet you can get that one drastically lower. So for the FICO scoring, you don't want all of your cards showing a $0 balance because you will take a hit on your score for not using your credit. However, any small balance reported as your "statement balance" is fine, which would just be normal use throughout the month. Not only is there no need to carry a balance from month to month, but there is a big reason for not doing that - interest. In addition to accruing interest on any unpaid statement balance from the previous month, you also lose your grace period for new purchases. So that $1000 flight you booked today would accrue interest from the time it's charged until the time you pay it off a month or two later. That will usually completely negate any rewards you receive on a credit card.

Re: Chase APR reduction fail, trying again! Any input?

Anonymous — Fri, 04 May 2018 15:52:31 GMT

@merlinflex So chatted with Citi just now... Am I wrong?

See here for some more useful information on Citi APR decreases:

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Citi-APR-Decreases/m-p/5240180#M1546721

Re: Chase APR reduction fail, trying again! Any input?

merlinflex — Fri, 04 May 2018 16:07:05 GMT

So chatted in to Amex just now. They lowered rates on both cards I was looking to get lowered on.

Amex Blue: was 21.49 now 18.75%
Amex Delta: was 19.24 now 17.24%

So Amex and Citi, at least the one of two cards were successful.

Guess I will give up on Chase and Cap1 for now as judging by the responses here, it would be a no go. Thoughts if otherwise?

Re: Chase APR reduction fail, trying again! Any input?

AverageJoesCredit — Fri, 04 May 2018 18:38:36 GMT

Advice, stop trying, Apr and Chase go together like cats and dogs.

Re: Chase APR reduction fail, trying again! Any input?

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Jan 2019 17:39:42 GMT

I'm calling all of my cards today for lower rates, and I also hit a BRICK WALL when it came to my 2 Chase accounts. It's unreal to me that they wont budge. Thanks for the info everyone.