Welcome to My Fico Forums, @JM761. 
I see from your previous postings that you've also found the "Rebuilding Your Credit" forum which seems it would be a great resource for your situation!
Good luck with getting the medical debt collections removed.
Yes, if DH has just one credit card, an additional card or two would probably improve his score. Supposedly, three cards is the ideal minimum to be able to achieve the highest FICO from a scoring perspective. You can read or ask more about that in the Understanding FICO Scoring forum.
Chase will get increases, but they normally like to see moderate-to-heavy usage of the existing credit limit to give more. If that 6% utilization on the $5400 card ($324) is your normal monthly spend, they probably would see no need for an increase. If driving up monthly spend on the card (with the ability to repay monthly) is within your budget, then by all means you could try to get the CLI on the Chase card. However, I suspect you may be better off applying for a second card. Since we always recommend diversifying lenders, I would suggest applying with a different bank for card2.
Yes, the amount of information on the forums can be overwhelming and it goes back for years. No worries about starting a new topic if you have questions. Of course, try to use the search feature and make a reasonable effort to get your answers before starting new posts. But if you don't find what you need, just ask! If the posting is redundant to other message threads, moderators might merge your posting in those older threads. The big no-no is starting multiple similar threads trying to get the same information. That is highly frowned upon.
@JM761 wrote:Good morning,
I wanted to ask for guidance. I am new to this journey and thought this board would have some good suggestions.
A bit of background:
My husband and I are in the process of rebuilding our credit. Mine is tanked and on the (very) slow increase due to paid charge offs.
His is around 720-730. Not the best but slowly building. He has only 1 credit card and a mortgage.
He has multiple student loans that he pays regularly, so I think that helps bump up the score.
THere are 3 medical collections we are dealing with. One was a Paid for less than full balance ($210/$262) and we are trying to have it removed (esp since I believe agencies will not be reporting this balance after July 2022), 2 are unpaid and we didn't know about - both for $100. We are goign to try and PFD both of them this week (we just found out about them).
The big question:
Right now, while we deal with the collections issues, we have learned we should try and increase debt to credit ration.
That means: open additional cards to give him more lines of credit (he only has 1) and, I think, request an increase to his current credit card (Chase $5400 limit, current utilization approx 6%)
Which would be best to do first?
I thought having a higher credit limit might increase available debt to credit ratio and the next step could be to look for pre-approved promotions but I wasn't sure which was best.
Thank you, in advance, for sharing your thoughts.
Also, I've tried reading all the pinned posts but it's overwhelming. I am still working my way through. If there is one you suggest I read so I can avoid bothing with simple questions, please let me know and I'll make it a priority!
Adding a card would likely reduce his scores in the short run, but in the long run enable to him to increase his scores by having 2 accounts with 1 reporting a zero balance while the other reports a small balance before paying it off. I'm guessing it would be 3-4 months before he showed a net gain.
I'll add that requesting a CLI from Chase will result in a HP of his credit, so I would not request a CLI from them. I would look to open other cards to increase his available credit and decrease utilization.
I would check preapprovals on Amex, Apple Card, FNBO, Citi, etc. to see if he has offers on other cards from other lenders. Apple and FNBO will tell you the limits and terms before final approval and the HP, so that could help gauge whether they are with opening.
@JM761 wrote:I will start to look into pre-approval offers. I am sure there's a good place to find them - I think I saw some pre-approvals when we pulled his report on experian. I'll research the group for the best place to find this info. Thank you so much. These boards are making the overwhelming mountain of credit repair a little less chaotic.
Don't rely upon "preapprovals" through Experian - go directly to each lender's site and use their preapproval tools. The offers you see through Experian, Credit Karma, etc. These are mostly marketing.