@Anonymous wrote:
Lol well that escalated quickly. OP I totally understand your point. I'm in rebuild status so even getting a $250 auto CLI is incredibly exciting to me. I'm also puzzled by those that have so many credit cards and thousands upon thousands of dollars in limits but amazing credit scores so obviously their UTIL is low so why do they need so much? LOL, well maybe because they can. Maybe they think they need it, and maybe they just get satisfaction from getting those CLI's because hey, it's like getting an A on a paper in a class you're already acing or getting another raise at work: it's HARD to obtain and maintain the level of credit worthiness in America it would take to not only get those high limits but also to continue to use credit responsibly enough to maintain that low utilization. In the end, this one forum gets soooo much more traffic than any other subject. I can go all afternoon and no one will post anything on the mortgage threads but this one is always always lit up.
I think the answer to your question is that they can, it makes them feel good in some way, and they are obviously mostly managing it correctly so they aren't seeing hits to their credit. Also, I'll be honest: I think it's a little elitist as well. If someday I can rebuild to be able to manage high limits in a responsible way, after what I've been through with my credit, hey, I'll join the "elite" as well
THIS^^^ - 6 months ago, I couldn't get a decent $2,500 SL on a CC and now I have over $150K in credit. It feels amazing, even though I am not even putting a dent in it. When you have had credit problems in the past, obtaining credit becomes very emotional. I am at the point where I feel like I have enough, but I will still hit the luv button because hey why not?
Maybe because when I was young and dumb I found myself in a finacial jam and my credit tanked because I wasn't more educated on credit and income and all that good stuff. Since I am older and hopefully wiser I have a good credit profile today. Luckily I recovered this time but I fear ever having a next time.
I pay my CCs as soon as the balance posts. Yes, I make multiple payments a week, month however often I need to, to keep my balances at 0 or atleast as close to it as possible. I know all about floating and paying in full before the statement cuts and all that but I also know how it is to have an income one minute and none the next. So rather than chancing not having the money to pay for it at the end of the statement I treat it almost like having a rewards debit. I use my cards for all my spends to get the points and rewards so I can benefit from that but pay as soon as I can to ever avoid not being able to pay them.
I have a steady income and most likely unless something extremely drastic happens I will always have that income and I have savings but getting into that one finacial crisis years ago has molded me now.
I have some pretty decent card limits, not nearly as high as a lot of people here but comfortable for me. I look at my limits again with my wisdom I learned being in debt. It is great having 30-50k limits for an emergency but can you afford the bare even minimum payment on those limits if a big emergency happened that you had to max them? That's great you have the limit available if you need it but I'd be afraid even at my income level to max a card with that limit, the minimum payment would be too much, on top of my everyday expenses like mortgage, utilities, food, gas and insurance. If I was in a finacial enough bind I had to max my cards it would mean I was in a finacial enough bind to probably not be able to add another $1000-2000 a month CC payment on top. But I could be wrong.
So while I like CLI I sometimes will not take them because I know how much I could afford to pay back if I had too and having an extemely high limit (above 25k) scares the heck out of me from a finacial standpoint.
GREED.... pure greed is the answer OP!!
@Anonymous wrote:It seems as if many people are obsessed with growing their credit limits and this is something I don't quite understand. I'll preface by saying I have solid credit scores and most of my limits are fairly high (avg. around 5,000 with a few over 10,000). I see people asking all the time about getting CLI's, dropping cards because of lack of CLI's, cards not showing them any "love" etc. And I just don't get it? Once you have a decent limit why the obsession over it continuing to grow? I'm not being snarky, just trying to understand. Short of massive purchase shouldn't our CLI's (assuming they aren't insanely low) be pretty irrelevant? I pay off my cards multilple times a month and savvy credit users should be paying in full at the minimum as often as possible each statement cut (minus BT 0% stuff but let's leave that out for now).
Is it people not wanting to pay multiple times in a month? (Don't see why this is a big deal). Is it just wanting to say you can put 25,000 on a card? Especially for those with multiple cards (vast majority of us) it isn't as if you're not going to have enough credit to make certain purchases.
It just seems as if something many people are really obsessed over and I don't get it.
I think a lot of people here are interested in maximizing their FICO scores, and the higher one's available credit in proportion to one's reported balance, the lower one's capacity utilization percentage... which represents 30% of one's FICO score.
At least that's my reason.
This? Right here? Is why I mind my own business and post less. OP, question why someone does what they do and......oh boy!
BANANAS
BANANAS
@Anonymous wrote:I like getting a pat on the head from credit card companies.
Can I give you a head rub for good luck?
I got married in June and right after the wedding left for the honeymoon. I use my Citi DC for everything in order to get the 2% on all purchases. If I did not have a very high limit on that card I would be worrying about paying off my card and making sure I can keep charging to it more then enjoying the wedding and preperations. I charged my entire honymoon trip on the card, I paid a lot of the vendors (last payments) before the wedding, rehersal dinner, all expenses while on honeymoon and anything else that came up. If that card did not have such a high limit I would probably be splitting the payments on different cards with less rewords and I would be missing a lot of cash back.
At least to me this is a reason why I like to have high credit limits. I did not want to worry about finances and paying my card off before statment closing, I was enjoying my big day and everything that came with it instead
For me personally, getting a CLI was important on my BCP which was stuck at 1k for exactly a year. I felt like a 1k credit line just felt out of place on my credit report since I now have 15k+ cards. Also in a manual review a 1k line might make it seem that you can't be trusted with large lines. I will be happy once all my cards are 5k+, I don't need 50k credit cards like FinStar has, my sweet spot is 5-15k
Gardening until September 2025