topic Re: Highest initial credit limits? in Credit Cards

Highest initial credit limits?

Shmike — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 00:15:49 GMT

As I've been perusing everyone's signatures, it seems the credit unions are giving the highest starting limits. Is that the case? Do you have to build the relationship with them prior to this, is it connected to employment position? Do they serve people better when it's a credit union in their area? What are the contributing factors to getting these 40 and $50,000 credit limits? Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Should I find some local credit unions, and go and open an account? Is it usually an initial starting credit limit? Or is it built over some time? Thanks in advance

Re: Highest initial credit limits?

wingennis — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 00:55:42 GMT

My 60k limit is a result of reallocations from other cards and then closure. The highest starting limits I've received have been from credit unions and were less about relationship that credit scord/income. The others are a result of patient curation of CLIs over time.

Re: Highest initial credit limits?

swankytiger — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 01:11:18 GMT

my highest starting limit was from Amex on my base hilton card at like $17k

Re: Highest initial credit limits?

OmarGB9 — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 01:27:55 GMT

I think my highest starting limits were $10k and $16.99k (yes that was my actual SL, lol).

CUs do seem to be more generous than banks in many cases, but not always. High SLs can come as a result of relationship with CU/bank, credit/income, or some sort of combination of the above.

Re: Highest initial credit limits?

Kforce — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 03:10:50 GMT

Starting CL's are a function between each issuer's policies and your profile.

Some issuers are good on starting and grow slow, while others start low and grow fast.

Some are like rolling dice, you never know.

I believe Fico scores, history of payments and income are the 3 main factors after issuer which is on top.

A local CU gave me $25,000 as a starting and USBank my low at $7,000

Citi, and USBank, were less than my normal, and grew slow

Barclay, WF, FNBO, and numerous CU's are in the middle. (15k -20k)

High rollers are NFCU and My local CU Wescom.

Wescom started me with 25k and with almost no use it grew to 50k

I had them reduce it to 20k and they slipped up and gave me an auto

increase to 23,500 a few months back

I stop asking for more at 20K and most issuers don't give auto increases

if they have the web/app ability for you to ask.

Re: Highest initial credit limits?

ChargedUp — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 03:57:28 GMT

My highest SL was Chase Amazon Prime Visa ($35K)

My highest CU SL is a tie between Navy Fed and Interior Federal CU. ($25K, Elan also gave me a $25K SL)

I've received a $20K SL out of several CU's that I had no prior relationship with. NASAFCU, Bay FCU, Keypoint CU...

My AAA rewards Visa is my highest CL ($84.5K), which was a BoA product that seemed to hand over $10-15K CLI's every time the CLI link appeared. This is my fastest growing card. This card did see some massive purchases including one for $22K.

Slowest growing card - Bucketed Cap One Union Plus MC. 8 years old and hasn't broken $3K yet. Usually sock drawered.

Scores in the upper 700's to very low 800's, $200K income. Typically PIF but have carried some 0% balances in the past.

I'm content with any CL above $10K but prefer $20K+. Eventually I'll get around to weeding out some low hanging fruit if they don't grow.

Re: Highest initial credit limits?

MarkintheHV — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 11:16:10 GMT

My biggest starting limit came from Citi believe it or not. They gave me a 30.5K starting limit on my Citi Executive card.

Re: Highest initial credit limits?

Shmike — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 12:39:00 GMT

So as I've suspected, there's no magic formula. I appreciate the reply, I suppose in my situation I just need to stay committed, and let everything mature. It's tough, I really want to get this moving along! We'll see my scores are strong, I don't have any missed payments. I think with a little patience I'll be just fine. Thanks again!

Re: Highest initial credit limits?

Anonymous — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 13:02:19 GMT

Thinking about it, I received $30K starting limits from

a) A bank, Capital One

b) a CU, NASA FCU

c) a Fintech, SoFI

but I guess Cap One wins as this was around 2000 (when $30K was real money!) whereas the other two were in the last five years, when $30K barely gets you a decent latte

Re: Highest initial credit limits?

youngandcreditwrthy — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 14:31:33 GMT

credit unions are more generous in my estimation due to the fact that they can see your income because many people bank with them or some folks will open an account like checking or savings or maybe a CD to establish 6 mos of history then apply and are easier approved. Also, Penfed used to have you donte like $5 to a charity for example to skirt their military requirement or whatever it was. Penfed always denied me like "debt pyramiding" which is a stupid answer when I was AZEO.

Also, the nat'l banks can sometimes operate like credit unions if you use them for direct deposit and that can help you get higher limits.

Highest limit I ever got instant approval was when Chase had that Marriot card for 25k with 690 FICO and 150k income in 2012 straight outta college! Then Barclay's Arrival WEMC 20.7K; and S kank of America also gave me a SL of 30k on a recon which I wound up re allocating/pc'ing and what not over the years.

Credit limits are highly highly HIGHLY income dependent. As you can see my income with a 690 got me a large limit (but by that point I had several cards with 12-15k)

anywho, good luck.

@Anonymous cap one was great before the Great Recession!! my apr on a plat card was 9.24 and theyd reduce 1-2% every six months! Also gave me CL every six months no matter what! :-)

Re: Highest initial credit limits?

wingennis — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 22:35:28 GMT

@Shmike wrote:
So as I've suspected, there's no magic formula. I appreciate the reply, I suppose in my situation I just need to stay committed, and let everything mature. It's tough, I really want to get this moving along! We'll see my scores are strong, I don't have any missed payments. I think with a little patience I'll be just fine. Thanks again!

It is truly said that the credit game is a marathon and not a sprint.

Re: Highest initial credit limits?

md_rebuild — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 00:35:52 GMT

I got 2 NFCU (Flagship and Amex) both within 2 months of each other, both with $25K. I had an existing relationship with them (a Cash Rewards card with a CL of $14.5K) and did all of my banking and auto loan with them (started after my BK7 in 2019) so they could see everything. Scores were at about where they are now.

It's funny, I was on a spree at the time and in between the Flagship and the Amex, app'd for a Discover card as well. Got a limit of $3K. At this point, if I'm not going to get a starting CL of at least $10K, then it's not worth it (except for AMEX).

Re: Highest initial credit limits?

AwsiDooger — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 05:14:23 GMT

I just got my highest starting limit a few days ago, $25,000 from Fidelity. That followed by a week my lowest opening limit in many years, $4000 from Chase Slate.

But not overly surprising. As a gambler the various corporations look at me quite differently. American Express gives me high limits and increases even when I don't ask for them or look for them, including a tripled limit a few weeks ago. Wells Fargo is paranoid and turns me down while offering totally different explanations depending on who is speaking. Chase is all over the place. The Amazon limit keeps going up while they've never budged from the opening $1000 limit on Chase Freedom. Good thing I can use that card for small purchases like the frequent Burger King and Little Caesar's 10% offers.

After years without a new card the only reason I applied recently because my score went way up, above 800. I started receiving preapproved notices and other offers all over the place. I was really surprised Chase Slate only allowed $4000. I had plans for those 21 months.

Re: Highest initial credit limits?

GZG — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 05:20:57 GMT

@AwsiDooger wrote:
I just got my highest starting limit a few days ago, $25,000 from Fidelity. That followed by a week my lowest opening limit in many years, $4000 from Chase Slate.

But not overly surprising. As a gambler the various corporations look at me quite differently. American Express gives me high limits and increases even when I don't ask for them or look for them, including a tripled limit a few weeks ago. Wells Fargo is paranoid and turns me down while offering totally different explanations depending on who is speaking. Chase is all over the place. The Amazon limit keeps going up while they've never budged from the opening $1000 limit on Chase Freedom. Good thing I can use that card for small purchases like the frequent Burger King and Little Caesar's 10% offers.

After years without a new card the only reason I applied recently because my score went way up, above 800. I started receiving preapproved notices and other offers all over the place. I was really surprised Chase Slate only allowed $4000. I had plans for those 21 months.

move limit from the amazon to the slate, and take advantage of the 21 months and move it back when you're done

Re: Highest initial credit limits?

xenon3030 — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 05:57:19 GMT

I got the highest SL from Affinity (25k).

The lowest is from Walmart (I guess, it is ~$500). Since I do not shop at Walmart, it is in SD forever.

Re: Highest initial credit limits?

Turbobuick — Fri, 08 Dec 2023 04:14:48 GMT

I think a lot of your initial CL is based on your credit history including prior lines. For many years, maybe decades now, every new card I got had a line of $22K-26K. Seemed like too many similar to be a coincidence.

Re: Highest initial credit limits?

dunn2500 — Fri, 08 Dec 2023 08:47:48 GMT

22k flagship was my first card from navy, 15k WF autograph (have accts with}.....and AMEX with 10k ea.........started with 2k cards though but my CC history is only a year or so old

Re: Highest initial credit limits?

Shooting-For-800 — Sun, 10 Dec 2023 04:54:05 GMT

I got $30k with Venture.

Ialready had Savor and QuickSiler.

Re: Highest initial credit limits?

Shmike — Sun, 10 Dec 2023 07:19:21 GMT

I see you've two quicksilver. I didn't know that was possible. Are you "bucketed" w/ cap 1? If so any advice on getting out? Tx

Re: Highest initial credit limits?

mgood — Sun, 10 Dec 2023 19:39:37 GMT

PenFed Credit Union gave me two cards, within a couple weeks of each other, that each had a $5k SL. Those were my highest SLs at the time.

Chase has given me 3 of my 4 highest SLs, $9.1k for the CFF, which was my highest limit at the time, not just highest SL. $10.6k on the CSP, which was ok but not great compared to my other limits at the time. Then the Amazon at $21.3k was by far my highest SL and matched my highest CL of the time (FNBO Evergreen). I've since lowered the limit on the Amazon to add to the other limits, but right after lowering it to $16.4k, they gave me a CLI to $17.5k

FNBO Evergreen started at $11.3k, which was exactly what their pre-qual said I would get. Lots of people were getting generous SLs on that card at the time. That was my highest SL at the time and one of my higher CLs. It has grown to my highest CL at $25k.