Just a bit of advice (not sure if it works with 3rd party cards) however, when I first got my HSBC card, I applied online and was REWARDED (add sarcasm) a $320 credit limit........ Which was exactly $4,680 less than my lowest CL at the time.... The next day I went into an HSBC branch, explained the ridiculousness of the credit limit and told them that if that was going to be the limit, just cancel the card immediately... They gave me off to a manager, who looked up my accounts, saw that I had 4-5 other accounts with them and instantly gave me a 5k credit limit and told me to stop by in the next few months and she would see what she could do to get it raised even more. Since then, like clockwork, I stop in every 3-4 months and routinely get an icrease of around 1k, sometimes more, sometimes less. Right now it stands somewhere under 15k. So, moral of the story, if you bank with them or have other accounts, I would suggest stopping into a branch, as their phone CSR's have the mental capacity of a small turtle, and the communication skills of a brick wall - not to mention absolutely no power whatsoever to make any executive decisions.
Excellent Lyythine!
The moral of that story: Sometimes the best "backdoor" is the front door! 