Welcome to My FICO Forums, @thing2008. 
Debt-to-Income (DTI) is a common issue with approvals with many lenders. Unfortunately, when that comes up, the only ways to resolve it are to either pay down debt or wait until income rises or both. Debt and income are completely separate variables from FICO, so no amount of change in FICO or abstaining from new credit applications will fix that.
If those are all your revolving credit accounts, you're actually at 1/24 instead of 2/24, so that is good news. (The Blue Business Plus doesn't report to personal credit so it's not counted as part of 5/24.)
Another consideration is that the Chase Sapphire Preferred has a minimum credit limit of $5K. (Sapphire Reserve minimum is $10K.) Your highest personal limit is $4K on Apple and Chase has only approved you for $1.7K on the Freedom Unlimited. (Again, the BBP doesn't show on your reports so that $5K limit doesn't help support a higher personal limit approval for you. And, it's also a brand new account anyway.) Lenders do like to see what limits you've shown you can manage and tend to stay within that range or not greatly above it. So part of the issue may have been that they might have approved you for a card such as, say, a Chase Freedom Flex with another $1.7K limit but they couldn't go all the way up to a minimum $5K. Therefore, it turned into a denial.
The banking relationship can be helpful in opening the doors with Chase such as for getting either marketing offers or even "Green Star" or "Black Star" firm preapprovals. However, the banking relationship won't overcome underwriting concerns with income or debts.
I'd suggest putting this application on the back burner for awhile until the student loan debt has decreased. Perhaps make an effort to pay it down earlier if income will not be rising soon.
try requesting a soft-pull CLI on your CFU and see how much they give you, if they deny your 3 year old card a CLI, Chase isn't currently willing to give you more credit and if DTI is actually the reason on only 20k in loans, that's news to me
if they come back and magically give you 6-7k or something on your CFU, recon again and ask to move that limit over to your CSP app
does your banking show DD for a 50k/year income?
I'd be surprised you haven't gotten a CLI
Wow! @Aim_High Thank you so much for taking the time to fully break this down for me. I am a lurker and this was my first post so I was nervous! Let me know if the format was appropriate or if the site has a preferred way, for the future.
"Debt-to-Income (DTI) is a common issue with approvals with many lenders. Unfortunately, when that comes up, the only ways to resolve it are to either pay down debt or wait until income rises or both. Debt and income are completely separate variables from FICO, so no amount of change in FICO or abstaining from new credit applications will fix that"
This is what I expected and thought but it is nice to hear an expert confirm it. I was doing the rough 20k / 50k division and was assuming 40% is not too bad of a ratio. This is one of the things I just need to get rid of!
"Your highest personal limit is $4K on Apple and Chase has only approved you for $1.7K on the Freedom Unlimited. (Again, the BBP doesn't show on your reports so that $5K limit doesn't help support a higher personal limit approval for you. And, it's also a brand new account anyway.) Lenders do like to see what limits you've shown you can manage and tend to stay within that range or not greatly above it. So part of the issue may have been that they might have approved you for a card such as, say, a Chase Freedom Flex with another $1.7K limit but they couldn't go all the way up to a minimum $5K. Therefore, it turned into a denial"
After reading some threads here I learned about the minimums of 5k and 10k respectively and probably would not have pulled the trigger until my cards were around that area.
"The banking relationship can be helpful in opening the doors with Chase such as for getting either marketing offers or even "Green Star" or "Black Star" firm preapprovals. However, the banking relationship won't overcome underwriting concerns with income or debts"
I am glad you brought this up, now given my score has fluctuated from the lowest 680 to where it is now I have never seen a green or black star offer! I guess Chase is very very peculiar!
"I'd suggest putting this application on the back burner for a while until the student loan debt has decreased. Perhaps make an effort to pay it down earlier if income will not be rising soon."
I agree! again, I really appreciate your insight and some confirmations that I was already thinking about. I am glad I decided to post this and hope to join the community in further conversations
Thank you so much @GZG for taking the time to help.
@GZG wrote:try requesting a soft-pull CLI on your CFU and see how much they give you, if they deny your 3 year old card a CLI, Chase isn't currently willing to give you more credit and if DTI is actually the reason on only 20k in loans, that's news to me
I just looked and after entering my income, I am getting you card is not eligble for a CLI. Amazed.
if they come back and magically give you 6-7k or something on your CFU, recon again and ask to move that limit over to your CSP app
does your banking show DD for a 50k/year income?
Yep my whole paycheck from my first job has gone to my checking at chase.
I'd be surprised you haven't gotten a CLI
For one semester in school I did not budget correctly and calculated that I did not need a student loan, but as things happen I was tight so had to put most of my tutition on my CFU, so that reported close to 100% for about a semester (4 months) my score did take a hit to the high 600's. Could they still be holding on to that? and are hestitant to increase? I never missed a payment, was late etc.. just high utilization. Right now it is sitting at zero and it has been since late last year, as I am liking my amex set up.
I want to thank you for responding and giving your insight as-well
@thing2008 wrote:Looking for some advice.
EX 738
EQ 758
TU 737
Oldest account age: 3 year 7 Month
Chase 5/24 status: 2/24
Income: 50k
Current Line-Up
BBP Aug 2023 5k limit
Gold Oct 2021
CFU Oct 2020 1700 limit
BCE Oct 2021 2500 limit
Apple Card Jan 2020 4k limit
Discover IT Dec 2019 3k limit
Do all of my banking with Chase for over 5+ years
____
Applied For Chase Saphire Preferred Aug 11
The first denial stated only debt to income ratio, I have 20k on student loans and no other debt.
2% utilization. Chase Proprietary score was 797
After Calling recon and having them do a manual review, just received a second letter stating:
Credit report shows too many recently opened accounts
Too many accounts with balances
I guess I will give it a break but I am at a loss at what else they need to see. Please let me know if you guys need me to elaborate on any more info. Thank you so much!
I'm at a loss too. They should give you the card already.
But my advice would be to take them at their word, and for a while (a) not do anything that generates a hard pull and (b) have most of your accounts report zero balances. And then when a nice looking preapproval pops up for you, grab it, or go into a branch and grab it.
@thing2008 wrote:Thank you so much @GZG for taking the time to help.
@GZG wrote:try requesting a soft-pull CLI on your CFU and see how much they give you, if they deny your 3 year old card a CLI, Chase isn't currently willing to give you more credit and if DTI is actually the reason on only 20k in loans, that's news to me
I just looked and after entering my income, I am getting you card is not eligble for a CLI. Amazed.
if they come back and magically give you 6-7k or something on your CFU, recon again and ask to move that limit over to your CSP app
does your banking show DD for a 50k/year income?
Yep my whole paycheck from my first job has gone to my checking at chase.
I'd be surprised you haven't gotten a CLI
For one semester in school I did not budget correctly and calculated that I did not need a student loan, but as things happen I was tight so had to put most of my tutition on my CFU, so that reported close to 100% for about a semester (4 months) my score did take a hit to the high 600's. Could they still be holding on to that? and are hestitant to increase? I never missed a payment, was late etc.. just high utilization. Right now it is sitting at zero and it has been since late last year, as I am liking my amex set up.
I want to thank you for responding and giving your insight as-well
you can try calling in as well, ensure it's still a soft-pull when you do, but I thought I read some people getting a CLI on a phone call when they weren't able to through the online system
they very well be still be spooked with your utilization, but it's worth a shot if it's a soft pull
if they ask you how much you want, ask high, so you have enough (5K) to put on the CSP with at least 1k left on the CFU
@thing2008 wrote:Thank you so much @GZG for taking the time to help.
I just looked and after entering my income, I am getting you card is not eligble for a CLI. Amazed.
... I was tight so had to put most of my tutition on my CFU, so that reported close to 100% for about a semester (4 months) my score did take a hit to the high 600's. Could they still be holding on to that? and are hestitant to increase? I never missed a payment, was late etc.. just high utilization. Right now it is sitting at zero and it has been since late last year, as I am liking my amex set up.
Those are certainly two other telling factors, @thing2008. The lack of further available credit may indicate you're at a temporary plateau with Chase, although if you've swapped spending away from CFU to AMEX, that could play into that equation. Chase does like to see some usage to give CLIs.
Even more-so is the recent (within 12 months or less is definitely recent) high utilization on an in-house credit card. While you may have paid it off, having run it up that high and probably carrying the balance for awhile might have given them pause, especially if you were just making minimum payments for awhile. Lenders don't like to see high utilization and the longer you drag out repaying, the more they are concerned you were overly burdening your ability to repay. These are some of the things that lenders don't really tell you, but they don't like to see your balance close to the limit - even though you're technically approved for it - and they don't like to see minimum payments only - even though that's well within the cardholder agreement. Carrying a large utilization on multiple cards and making minimum payments can even lead to 'AA' (Adverse Action) where among other things, a lender may "balance chase" a consumer (continue to lower their credit limit to just above current debt until it's paid off, and sometimes close the account once paid.)
You might find >This Thread< helpful where I posted some community data points about the impacts of either individual account utilization or aggregate utilization across all accounts. Having that ~100%, of course, is especially concerning but utilzation can become a limitation even at lower levels. (Also click on the link within the linked article for further reading.) While the FICO impacts of utilization are temporary since FICO keeps no memory of utilization (and may be related in-part to your scores rising from the high 600's to the mid-700's), lenders do keep records of how you've managed your accounts with them and could take recent higher utilization into consideration if you're applying for more credit. They may want to see more stability and moderation in usage before feeling comfortable about your credit risk.
@GZG wrote:
@thing2008 wrote:Thank you so much @GZG for taking the time to help.
@GZG wrote:try requesting a soft-pull CLI on your CFU and see how much they give you, if they deny your 3 year old card a CLI, Chase isn't currently willing to give you more credit and if DTI is actually the reason on only 20k in loans, that's news to me
I just looked and after entering my income, I am getting you card is not eligble for a CLI. Amazed.
if they come back and magically give you 6-7k or something on your CFU, recon again and ask to move that limit over to your CSP app
does your banking show DD for a 50k/year income?
Yep my whole paycheck from my first job has gone to my checking at chase.
I'd be surprised you haven't gotten a CLI
For one semester in school I did not budget correctly and calculated that I did not need a student loan, but as things happen I was tight so had to put most of my tutition on my CFU, so that reported close to 100% for about a semester (4 months) my score did take a hit to the high 600's. Could they still be holding on to that? and are hestitant to increase? I never missed a payment, was late etc.. just high utilization. Right now it is sitting at zero and it has been since late last year, as I am liking my amex set up.
I want to thank you for responding and giving your insight as-well
you can try calling in as well, ensure it's still a soft-pull when you do, but I thought I read some people getting a CLI on a phone call when they weren't able to through the online system
they very well be still be spooked with your utilization, but it's worth a shot if it's a soft pull
if they ask you how much you want, ask high, so you have enough (5K) to put on the CSP with at least 1k left on the CFU
I agree with @GZG that calling in may be worth a try. If they still decline over the phone, then you'll receive a letter usually both online and written that give some reasons for the decline. I've gotten approvals over the phone but also been denied as well. The denial letter has usually appeared in my online app document mailbox after about 24 hours.
If they ultimately decline in the end, you've gotten some great advice from others how to approach your credit for the next several months or so.
Hi @SouthJamaica , Thank you so much for your advice! I think that is the consensus and I am excited too see what happens