@coldfusion wrote:
@Remedios wrote:
@importxpresions wrote:I see you have decent limits on your Chase Cards. How'd you go about getting those limits increased?
@importxpresions you would need to call them, they will do a HP (or two), you might get instant decision or it might require review. Auto increases from Chase are not unheard of, but they are rare compared to other lenders. In a nutshell, Chase tends to load upfront whatever they are comfortable with, so extra will usually come with a small price to pay in a form of HP.
Or, if you're under 5/24 apply for another Chase card. After you have possession of the physical card call them to shift around all but $500 of the new card's SL over to the old one. With Chase the odds lean toward getting a higher SL on a new card than you would a CLI on an existing one.
@importxpresions, you asked about my Chase relationship so maybe this will help give you some perspective. Both above posts from @Remedios and @coldfusion give some good insights about Chase.
Chase is by-far my largest lender with $138,400 in credit lines across 6 different accounts. It hasn't always been that way, though. And while my income, debt, and scores are in solid shape now, that also has not always been the case. Here's the backstory, if you're interested. For about 10-15 years, I was caught up in bills related to a major unplanned career disruption, raising a family, and moving between states changing jobs trying to get back on my chosen path. It wasn't an easy time in my life. I was carrying some large five-figure debts for years trying to pay it all back down, and rolling it between 0% or low-apr BT offers on credit cards among other tactics. Chase is part of that story in my early years with them.
I opened my first Chase credit card account almost 20 years ago in July 2000 with a credit limit of $6K. Credit cards have been my only relationship with Chase; I've never had banking accounts or loans with them. That first card (and my only for a very long time) was a Slate Visa which I specifically applied-for and used-for an immediate balance transfer. They authorized a CLI for me to transfer more balances and it went up to $11K about 18 months later. When I haven't been applying for balance transfers, Chase has sometimes been stingy with CLI's for me. I've taken several hard pulls and gotten nothing to show for it. Also, while I did get some increases, as my debts increased and my scores dropped Chase also CLD'd that Slate card back down to a $7.5K limit. 
After the Freedom Unlimited card was introduced, I converted the Slate to a Freedom Unlimited.
In 2009, I added my second Chase card, an Amazon Visa. In 2017, I started downsizing and reorganizing my cards, and cancelled that one. That card had grown from $7650 SL up to eventually $25K with some balance transfers. I sort of wandered into the fact that Chase let me combine my limits on the two cards, so I ended up with a much higher limit on my remaining card, the Freedom Unlimited. I believe at that point my limit was around $35K +/-.
Two years ago in May 2018, I was 0/24 and looking for a solid travel card. I learned about the Chase Sapphire Reserve and decided that was my best fit. Chase gave me $35K SL on that card. 
Over the course of the following 18 months, I continued to use my additional Chase slots before applying anywhere else. I applied anywhere from 3-6 months apart for new cards. I next got the INK Business Preferred for the 80K UR bonus. The credit limit was a lower approval than others at $9K but that was probably because it was based on a small sole proprietorship so my revenue claims didn't justify a higher limit. (Six months later, I PC'd it to the no-AF INK Business Cash and Chase even rebated part of the remainder of my AF.) Then I got the basic Freedom card to complete my Quadfecta. Freedom only came with a $21.9K limit, but it was still all "new credit lines." After that was done, I knew I had two more slots I could claim. Having a few, but higher-quality and higher-limit cards is my objective, and I knew Chase would allow me to combine limits now. Plus their SUBs on new cards are awesome. So I next got the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless - approved for $33K limit. And finally the World of Hyatt - approved for $30K limit, but on this one they stole some of my limit from the CSR. So I had "tapped out" my potential with them.
I have since made some adjustments to the credit limits and decided $10K per hotel card was sufficient. I bumped up my Freedom to an even $25K. I also reinstated my CSR credit limit and then added more to it. Reallocating credit limits is easy with Chase by either phone call or their secure messaging.
If you'll notice, and I don't think it's a coincidence, Chase appears to give higher limits on their premium travel cards with annual fees. It's my belief that most banks do this; they reserve higher starting limits for most customers to the cards they consider more prestigious.
In summary, if you aren't using a large portion of your credit limits with Chase on either spend-and-pay or balance transfers, your best bet for CLI is to apply for additional cards and later merge them. From what I've seen, if either of those two situations do not apply for you, don't waste a hard pull on CLI with Chase. Of course, with a banking relationship thrown on top of all this, your mileage may vary substantially but this has been my experience as a credit-only customer.
Thanks for the insight. I do like hearing people's background and everyone has their path they travel down. I'll definitely put some of your experience to use for myself.
@sarge12 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:And just a PSA that credit limits aren't the same as cash in the bank! Chasing more and higher CLs isn't a necessary goal. Look at other threads here to see how quickly things can go away....
Those credit limits are not usually real credit limits anyway. If you have a seldom used card with a 25k limit, start charging 1000 dollars a day to that card and see if you ever get near that 25k limit before charges are denied. Their alogorithms are looking at past credit behaviors on that card, and extremely unusual behavior will get it flagged and they will be calling you, maybe even after an initial decline of the charges. If however running such charges is within your normal behavior, it might not even be questioned. They are very watchful for breakout charging though. People who have, like myself nearly 250,000 dollars in aggregate credit limits might think they could have the Mother of all buying sprees and max all those cards out, but in reality, they would not get very far into those limits before those cards would receive the Mother of all AA on credit cards.
This is true, but also especially moreso with some lenders and some types of cards. I have limits of $479K but I would never use more than a small fraction of that at any one time. It's nice to be trusted with that much and having high limits on multiple accounts not only helps with utilization (and buffering my credit score) but also give me flexibility to charge or balance transfer highly on a single account if I choose to do so. Options are always a good thing.
So yeah, if I charged up to limits on ALL or MOST of my cards, I would probably get shut down like @sarge12 described. But could I charge $24,900 on a single $25,000 credit line? For most of my lenders, absolutely! Would the bank call to verify it wasn't fraud? Very likely, and honestly I'm glad that they would. Would such high utilization temporarily hurt my credit score? Absolutely! Lol 
Would high utilization on a single account trigger mass adverse action across my other cards? Eh, probably not, as long as I had been managing all my other accounts well, my scores were still high, and it didn't appear to be part of a longer term downward slide indicating distress.
There are some cards that will just disapprove higher charges. AMEX, I'm looking at you. In particular, their charge cards are based on those algorithms more than regular credit cards. If you don't use your Platinum card and then try to charge $24,900, it will likely be denied. And you may later learn that your current spending limit has dropped to perhaps, $7,000 even though in the past you put massive spend on it. So high spending on those cards requires you to consistently put high spend on those cards.
