I'm starting to become very active on the forum and checking out the limits in people's sigs. I see a lot of the time people with higher credit scores getting lower approved limits than me, so I'm curious.... what gives? I just saw a gentleman with almost 60pts higher on score get a 1/6th of what I did in terms of limit ($3K-$500).
I'm beginning to wonder if there really is an system to the madness, so to speak.
Personal:
@Broke_Triathlete wrote:I'm starting to become very active on the forum and checking out the limits in people's sigs. I see a lot of the time people with higher credit scores getting lower approved limits than me, so I'm curious.... what gives? I just saw a gentleman with almost 60pts higher on score get a 1/6th of what I did in terms of limit ($3K-$500).
I'm beginning to wonder if there really is an system to the madness, so to speak.
Scores is only a part of your history. You also have to look at whats in your report. Like BK, other type of various baddies, your History with the Bank, your other cards, HP's on your account , Other types of Loans like Car loans, personal loans, mortgage, and if you recently got approved for credit recently is a few reasons why you might get higher limits then somebody who even has the same score as you
I thought I had understood that. I just never thought I would have such a higher line than someone with a lot better score then me. I figured someone with that higher of a score (comparitively since mine isn't high) would have at least a similar line.
So I guess what I can take from this is that even though my score is low I'm doing the right things in the eye of the lenders to issue me such a high line?
@DrZoidberg wrote:You can have a low score due to AAoA but get high approvals because of flawless payment history and utilization.
Bingo. I'm sure that's what the issue is. I have low AAoA (1.2 yrs) but have had 100% payments and under 30% utilization for the last 2.5 years.
Generally one's score gets you an approval and potentially APR (if it's a variable product); it doesn't factor nearly as much in limits, also not all scores are created equally either (a 740 on 2 credit cards for 2 years is way different than a 740 on 8 years history with many and varied tradelines).
Limits in some cases might as well be determined by Oujia board (marketing / advertising reasons for customer subjective opinion) but as stated income, assets, and known spending patterns are generally the major considerations. Also the lender's underwriting policy at the time of approvals, generosity when it comes to limits waxes and wanes based on both macro economic and individual lender finances.
Then there's other things like consumers that push for CLI's vs. those that don't: I pushed on my Amex BCP and didn't on anything else though I know if I wanted a CLI on my Freedom I could likely easily qualify for one at the expense of a HP, but I just don't need more than 1K on that tradeline so I don't worry about it. I only needed the one high tradeline to break me out of the smaller limit category, and given the Amex almost assuredly got my Fidelity limit where I really can use the 7.5K CL and similarly the Barclays 4400 approval (when I massively understated my traditional income on both no less), the old school forum advice worked quite well in my case.
End of the day while I could push for higher limits whenever I have documentable income again, there's no real need for me to do so currently and as such I don't use my credit report for CLI chasing currently.
