Creditlife - thanks for your suggestions! I am hesitant to apply for CLI's because i am not sure if they will be hard pulls & I dont want to see my score drop from the inquiries. To date - i have the following cards - all of them except Home Depot were opened around the same time over 2 years ago: Home Depot was opened this last November.
Target
Toys R Us
Kohls
Cap 1
Amazon Store Credit Card
HSN Comenity MC
Home Depot
My father put me on as an Authorized user on some of his cards 13 years ago but has since closed a few when he recently re-financed his house last year. He is willing to do it again for me as he has EXELLENT Credit somewhere in the 800 park and has HUGE credit lines on cards. I am having him look to see what his oldest account as I am thinking of doing it again to see if it helps my score much.
Most of the cards I have now are almost maxed out but i have been faithfully paying them ON TIME since I got them but would love to gain a 0% interest card so i can transfer some balances. All my interest rates on the cards are incredibly high.... :{ 24% so the interest i am paying on them is killing me! I have gotten a ton of offers in mail from citibank for months now but just trying to be smart about what i apply for...
How would you suggest going about asking for CLI's on those above cards? Online or calling? Will they all be HP's? My Cap1 used to give me regular increases but maxed out at $5k and has been stuck there for over a year without any increase.
What bank handles Walmart card & do you think I would be approved for it with my scores in the 650's?
Thanks again for your suggestions! It's been a long road for me rebuilding my credit after losing our house over 7 years ago so last 2 years have been about crawling out of that black hole and regaining back my high 700 score I had when we bought our first house. Its been a slow process but I'm hoping to keep at it until I get back there again. 
When asking for a CLI, Capital One doesn't ask you to request a specific amount. They'll offer the maximum they're willing to give you, and you can opt to take less if you'd like. Keep in mind that you could be denied because of your high utilization. But there's no harm in asking. A CLI request is a soft pull. And because no clock is reset after a denial, you could conceivably request again the next day (although waiting a couple of months would make more sense).
It's important to understand that you can't transfer balances between two cards from the same bank. But you could transfer a balance from one of your other banks to a new Capital One card. Note that when applying for a new card, Capital One will hard pull all three bureaus. Consider that you could easily be denied because of your high utilization. But they're quirky, and they might not care.
Always take simulators with a grain of salt (or actually, a big chunk of rock salt). They're not that accurate. They're kind of a one size fita all thing and don't really account for the details in one's individual profile. Also, VantageScores aren't that useful, meaning that their simulators won't be all that useful either. Go ahead and play with them, but don't put a lot of stock into them. They'll likely tell you that lowering your utilization will increase your score, but that's about it.
Becoming an authorized user on older high-limit cards won't hurt. But your mileage may vary. Some lenders disregard them.
Also, if you have no immediate need for new credit, you might be just as well off concentrating on paying down your current cards and let the scoring take carte of itself with time.
As far as your other cards, I think most of them use soft pulls for CLIs. But don't take my word for it. 
Let others who know for sure confirm that.
@heather06 wrote:I currently have a QS card with $5k limit that is almost maxed out. Have had it a little over 2 years and have read you could transfer some of your balance to another new card. My overall utilization is at 56% and I do not have a lot of cash flow to pay down my cards quickly right now so I am trying to find ways to lower my utilization score which seems to be hurting my scores. Would opening a new card with Capital One help with this? I have excellent payment history with all my cards but my credit scores are in the 650's across the board and stuck there until I get my uti down. I am being incredibly cautious about applying for new cards as I only want to do it if it would help my overall score. I did the pre-approved offer online and it only gave me 2 options of QS One Rewards and the Platinum card as I put down I had average credit. If I apply would they HP all my reports? Last HP I got from cc app dropped my score 29 pts :{ so I do not want to do anything that would drop my score too much. Any advice would be much appreciated!
There are some common misconseptions reflected in your post and it's preventing you from make a smart educated decision.
1. If your card with a $5k limit is maxed out, that is undoubtedly the biggest factor impacting your credit score. Being "incredibly cautious" about applying for new cards is not helping or hurting your score in any meaningful way, compared with your maxed out card.
2. It's highly unlikely that a single HP dropped your score by 29 points. First question, was that an actual FICO score or something else like Credit Karma (anything other than a real FICO score is worthless and not to be believed). If it was a real FICO score, the cause of the drop was almost certainly something other than the HP (such as increase in util or decrease in AAoA); it's just that the HP prompted the system to update your score. Unless there's something very weird with your profile, a single HP would probably have an impact of 0-5 points, and within a few months trend down to nothing.
3. You cannot in most cases transfer balances between the same bank.
4. CLI requests are SP with Capital One (99% of the time). Even if it were a HP, it's not going to have any meaningful effect on your score.
So, based on what you shared, your optimal strategy would be to get a new card from a different lender and transfer part of your balance over to it. Obviously, try to look for cards with low fees and low APR on balance transfers. Also, given that utilization is the main thing you need to address, a balance transfer card that offers a high limit would be best. Unfortunately, if you have a card that is maxed out, it will be difficult to get approved for any new card, and very unlikely that it will have a significant limit.
Thanks everyone for your input. So it looks like asking for CLI's for Cap1 or any other cards that do soft pulls would be the best bet and possibly applying for a new card where i can transfer some of the balance from another card.
Questions: Does anyone know if Comenity HSN does a soft pull for CLI and is it better to call in or do the online button? I believe they gave me a CLI within the last 6 months so not sure how often you should/could ask for one?
For Cap 1 is it better to call in or do button online for CLI?
Does anyone know if Home Depot does a soft pull? I have read that they give some pretty big CLI's and have only had the card since November but only asked for increase upon initially getting approved for the card in November.
Lastly - I have been getting tons of offers in mail for Citi cards. Just went online to the pre-approved offers and have 5 offers showing up - Costco Visa, THank you Preferred, Thank you Premier, Citi Simplicity & Citi Diamond Preferred. It seems that Costco Visa has the best interest rate for me out of the 5 but only a 7 month 0% transfer balance. The screen has since blacked out but I am new to this pre-qualify offers online - so do i log back in and do it again and then apply right online under their offers?
I do not have the cash flow right now to pay these cards down quickly so my thinking is that if I can transfer even some of the balance from one of the cards and have a new credit line reporting - that should help with my uti score in the short term and hopefully bump my score up a little as i continue to pay down what i can and then hopefully apply for more 0% transfer balance offers in the near future once that score goes up.
also - all my scores i am getting are on Cap1 site, Amazon Credit card, & credit karma & credit sesame. The last TU score i saw was from a car purchase i did 2 months ago that said my score was 667 then which was higher than all of the ones i see on my free credit boards. Should i pull the FICO from here as well to get a more accurate pictures?
Thanks so much for all your input! I got my score up to 795 13 years ago when i bought my first house by following these boards and the suggestions and am now on that journey again so am very thankful for all the guidance here!
@heather06 wrote:I currently have a QS card with $5k limit that is almost maxed out. Have had it a little over 2 years and have read you could transfer some of your balance to another new card. My overall utilization is at 56% and I do not have a lot of cash flow to pay down my cards quickly right now so I am trying to find ways to lower my utilization score which seems to be hurting my scores. Would opening a new card with Capital One help with this? I have excellent payment history with all my cards but my credit scores are in the 650's across the board and stuck there until I get my uti down. I am being incredibly cautious about applying for new cards as I only want to do it if it would help my overall score. I did the pre-approved offer online and it only gave me 2 options of QS One Rewards and the Platinum card as I put down I had average credit. If I apply would they HP all my reports? Last HP I got from cc app dropped my score 29 pts :{ so I do not want to do anything that would drop my score too much. Any advice would be much appreciated!
If you apply for a new card it will definitely be a HP.
I don't recommend adding a second Capital One card.
