Summary: Had $500 Barclay card for 8 statements, rejected online, called, approved for $500 increase.
Background: I am still re-building. Started with credit scores around 560 two years ago. With work, brought them up to mid fico of 630 by Sept 2016 and bought a house. Opened 2 credit cards (Barclay and Cap1) right after the house closed thinking it would be a good time to take the hard inquiry hit and get new accounts.
Current Credit Usage: Both cards have been stuck at $500 credit limit since opened in Sept 2016. I keep Cap1 at about 1% usage. I use my Barclaycard daily for reward points, but pay in full every month. I also have an old secured American Express card for $250 that no longer use, got to start my rebuilding. No other credit cards. 8 month old mortgage account (always current) and a 2 year auto account (always current). Still have about 2-3 collections showing, 2+ years old. 2 charge offs, 7-8 years old. 1 paid judgement, 2 years old. No current baddies but quite a few imperfections if you go back a few years.
Requesting the Increase: After receiving my 8th statement last week from Barclay, I requested a CLI online. Rejected. Reasons: too many new accounts and too high of a balance.
Recon: I called the backdoor number (found on these forums) and explained my balance is high because it isn’t enough credit for my income and I PIF every month. She did say she would need to do another hard pull which I ok’d. She asked me a few questions (income, a few negatives on my credit from years ago) and approved me another $500 increase. Took 2 minutes. Overall I've been very impressed with Barclay.
Credit Score: I don’t pay for credit monitoring anymore through my fico, but my “fake” credit score according to Barclay’s free credit monitoring service was 640.
Not much of an increase, and a hard pull, but I was happy because Barclay was willing to double my limit and risk being my highest limit card. She did ask how much of an increase I wanted and I said $500. I probably could have asked for more. I want to make sure I can continue to PIF every month though. I’ve gotten much better with bills, but I don’t want to flood myself with credit and end up back in debt again. I just don’t think I’m the kind of person that can handle a $10k credit card (yet) =)
. That and my Ficoland peeps