Juggling credit limits.... anyone have experience with this?

[Fitzgibbons]

So, i applied for a discover card and chase freedom card about 5 months ago.

I was approved for both.

$500 limit with discover

$4,500 limit with chase.

At 3 months they both gave me an automatic CLI. So now i'm at:

$1,000 discover

$5,500 chase.

The thing is, i like discover card more as a company and would like to use it as my primary card, but the limit is so low.

I don't want to ping my credit, so what i'm thinking about doing is putting a low cap on the chase card this month, and hopefully at the 6 month review for discover i get a much higher automatic CLI, due to "freeing up space" with my chase card, without requesting it.

Does anyone have experience with something like this?

[takeshi74]

CLI's are determined based on what your credit profile and your income qualify for at time of consideration.  Those are compared to a creditor/product's underwriting criteria.

Your entire credit profile is considered.  Limiting use of your Chase card isn't going to get you a CLI from Discover in and of itself.  Revolving utilization is a factor that falls under Amounts Owed for FICO scoring:

http://www.myfico.com/crediteducation/whatsinyourscore.aspx

...but there are many other factors at play as well.  Additionally, the above is just for FICO scoring and does not cover a given creditor/product's specific underwriting criteria.

Identify the issues with your credit profile and work on addressing them.  The initial $500 limit from Discover indicates that they had concerns with your credit profile but the CLi from them is a good sign.  Additional CLI's will come as your credit profile continutes to improve.

[Fitzgibbons]

So the credit limit on my chase card doesn't affect my discover card?

[takeshi74]

Not directly and not on its own.

Again, limits factor into revolving utilization.  Revolving utilization falls under Amounts Owed.  FICO scoring is not the only consideration for a creditor when determining the limit or CLI that you qualify for.  That makes limits just one consideration among many.  Don't miss the forest because you're focusing on just one tree.

You seem to be assuming that all creditors see you as qualifying for $X total credit and that if you reduce a limit with one that you can get an increase with another.  That's not how it works.  Each creditor/product has its own criteria.  Each can be willing to extend different amounts of credit to you.  Lowering a limit with one will not necessarily lead to an increase with another.

If you want CLI's then identify and address the issues with your credit profile.

[Fitzgibbons]

right, yes. Im careful with my credit and keep utilization low on both cards.

I am looking at the forest at all times, but for the moment i'm curious about this one tree and what my odds of success are.

I don't want to put a low cap on the chase card, just to get another $500 increase on discover and shoot myself in the foot

[Fitzgibbons]

And to clarify further, i know whats wrong with my profile. I have a few aging derogatories, and have basically exhausted my options to get them removed sensibly.... i'm going to continue sending goodwill letters, but its more than likely going to boil down to them decaying with more time.

Im just trying to finagle it so i can use the card i want the most until then.

[Anonymous]

Discover simply takes longer for awesome gains. 9 months to a year gets the Big increases compared to cap1. Chase may have given you a better start limit but its not moving.

[Fitzgibbons]

Really? Chase already gave me a 1k increase. Is that not large?

[Anonymous]

Fitzgibbons, I think what you're missing is not focusing so much on the CLI, that will come in due time but there's other factors that play into it as other posters were saying. It's a YMMV thing for every one of us and no two profiles are the same. With Discover since that's your lower limit you might be shooting yourself in the foot with focusing so hard on utilization. Some lower limit cards may be a "show us some real use" type scenarios to see the bigger CLIs....Try shifting some of your Chase spend to your Discover, even with the $1k limit, then you would be wanting to still keep overall utilization low but on that Discover, you would do that with more frequest payments. Show Discover why you deserve a CLI on the higher side and that you love the card for your overall spend goals.

[dragontears]

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@Fitzgibbons wrote:

right, yes. Im careful with my credit and keep utilization low on both cards.

I am looking at the forest at all times, but for the moment i'm curious about this one tree and what my odds of success are.

I don't want to put a low cap on the chase card, just to get another $500 increase on discover and shoot myself in the foot

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with your current limit $500 is 50% of your limit so it is not a bad increase at this time. You have not had these cards that long so be a little patient, for me Discover would not increase my CL for 9 months and now my discover sits at 28.8k and I have had it for just over 2 years.

What I did with discover was every month once I made my payment I requested a CLI (as long as it had the SP verbage), some months it was a yes some months it was a no.

To this day my chase card has the same CL as I was approved for after 2 years. If I was you I wouldn't be expecting many CLI from chase in the future (you could be one of the lucky few but don't count on it)