I opened my Discover secured card in May with a $500 CL. I got that raised to $1,000 a couple of months later. I noticed tonight that the CL is now $1,500. I confirmed in chat that this means the card is now unsecured. My seventh statement closed last Thursday. That was my last unsecured card, so I'm excited that it graduated!
I'm less excited about the credit limit. I have three cards with $5,000 limits and another card with a $3,100 limit. My FICO scores are well in the 700s. I have used the Discover card quite a bit, never carrying a balance, and rarely coming close to my credit limit except early on before I raised it. I never exceeded the limit.
Is this a situation where a human at Discover could intervene and smooth out some algorithm-based snag, or will I need to wait two or three months to try for a CLI? Thanks!
How much did you put through the card each billing cycle?
Initially, around $500. Later (because I had additional options), generally $100-$250 or so.
They tend to be a bit big with experience managing a given limit, especially with secured to unsecured cards. If you want the process to go in your favor you'll have to demonstrate you can handle 1500 and potentially need more. They can be conservative with CLI on those cards. You also can try prequal at your one year mark. An unsecured card usually starts with more.
@Anonymous wrote:Hey guys,
My secured Discover is set to have it's 7th statement close in 2 days. I've always PIF before statement close and I use it pretty heavily. Since opening the account 1 collection has dropped off of my report leaving 0 collections and only 1 charge off from Wells Fargo.
Here's my question, how much does overall utilization count towards Discover graduation? I have a Cap1 card with 0% interest that I've been taking advantage of and I let the statement close with a $426 balance. Here's my current credit lines:
DiscoverIt Secured - $1200
Cap 1 Platinum Secured - $501
Cap 1 Platinum Preferred - $1000
Cap 1 Spark Business - $600
Apple Card (Will report to TU beginning Jan after 3rd statement close) - $1500
Citi Secured (Should report to all CRA's soon, they just took my funds yesterday) - $1600
I also have a lease with Honda for the current amount of $7,485
The problem is my Wells Fargo chargeoff seems to be calculated in my TU utilization (but notexperian) and adding that balance to the Cap1 card probably didn't help. As it stands, Experian thinks I only have $3301 and am using $466 which puts me at a 14% util rate. That should drop as soon as Citi reports my $1600 line with them, Goldman Sachs still hasn't released plans to report to Experian yet with the apple card. According to my Fico scoresheet that Discover offers, Transunion on the other hand is counting that WF debt towards util and as of right now only believes I have a $3301 in credit and am using $2119 which is roughly a 64% util rate and even when Citi and Apple report it will drop to only a 33% util rate.
So ultimately my question is how much will this utilization have an impact on Discover's decision to graduate me or not? I made another post recently where people have mentioned them graduating even with a couple charge offs, but how much does util rate factor into the decision. Looking to see if anyone has experience with graduating (or not) with utilization rates in the higher ranges?
Thanks
I think you will be completely fine. Your scores are in a good place and I would assume you either have no baddies or just one or two older ones, based on your cards and scores. My card graduated at 10 months, and I still had multiple negative items and very high utilization. However, many people report their cards taking longer to graduate with no particular, justifiable reason. The decision is made by a computer, so if it does not graduate this month, I would not take it personally.
toole... have you tried the prequalify yet... your secured card can be stuck... and yes you can app for a second card after a year.... even with a secured card on file....
-j
I'm at 13 months and like it was mentioned I prequalified at 1 yr for unsecured and got approved with a pretty darned large CL. Still giving the secured another 6-8 months, hoping for it to graduate so I can merge them.