BOA Secured Advice

[IWOL]

Ive had a B of A secured card for about 5 months now. My credit limit is only $500 but I've been putting through around $2500 a month by making large payments every few days. I bank with B of A, but I always use the secured card and rarely use my debit card to make charges. If you have a bank account with them the payments post the next day.

I'm hoping that when graduation time comes they will look at my usage history to perhaps determine the unsecured credit limit. I've thought about increasing the limit but I don't want the hard pull. Do you think this is a good strategy to get a higher unsecured limit or should I increase to the max $4900 and ust continue the same spending pattern?

[RyVision]

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@IWOL wrote:
Ive had a B of A secured card for about 5 months now. My credit limit is only $500 but I've been putting through around $2500 a month by making large payments every few days. I bank with B of A, but I always use the secured card and rarely use my debit card to make charges. If you have a bank account with them the payments post the next day.

I'm hoping that when graduation time comes they will look at my usage history to perhaps determine the unsecured credit limit. I've thought about increasing the limit but I don't want the hard pull. Do you think this is a good strategy to get a higher unsecured limit or should I increase to the max $4900 and ust continue the same spending pattern?

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If you're looking at 6 or more months before it graduates, AND locking up a total of 4900 is no issue, I'd say the HP to do it wouldn't mean much compared to the positive effect the CL would have.  JMHO.

I should add, I've never had a secured card, esp from BOA.  Last card from them was an unsecured $500CL with an AF that I just closed after 5 years for no "luv" from them.

[dddewdrop]

   If you get the card with a 5k total CL or 4k,  wait a bit then apply for some other cards and it should theoretically raise the CLs that other cards approve you for. If it does that for you then in a year you will have some new cards with higher limits and whether it graduates with a CLD or now will be moot because you will already have other cards with higher limits. I think it is very possible that if your credit isn't so great that they would either delay graduating your card or reduce the CL for a secured card when it graduates. That doesn't mean that having the secured credit line that is large cannot be used by you as a lever to raise other CLs across the board for you while it is still secured. Good luck.