Shall I leave a balance on discoverIT in hopes of CLI?

[Uppingmyscore]

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@Uppingmyscore wrote:

Next month will be my 1 year anniversary for Discover.  I've gotten 3 auto CLI's and 1 HP (3,500 to 10,000) all while using the card heavy and leaving a balance.  Why not take advantage of the 14 month zero interest??? It's worked for me and all my other cards-guess YMMV.  

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I'll add that I make multiple large payments thoughout the billing cycle.

[12njoy]

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@zeedakay wrote:

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@firesword wrote:

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@KennyRS wrote:
To me, people have a better chance of getting a CLI if they are paying in full. Discover or not.

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That has not been my experience.

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I'm actually surprised to say I'd have to agree with you. I feel just as different creditors use different criteria to gauge you for approval of cards, they use the same system to assign your credit line. I say this because about 2 weeks ago I decided to call discover and cap1 for a CLI. Even though I've had cap1 for 2 years longer, and carried similar if not lower balances on the cap1, with both cards having the same credit lines discover bumped me $1000 and cap 1 declined me. Their reasoning was I didn't use enough of my credit line. 

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There could be truth to that.  I recently applied for a 2nd US Bank card.  They denied me because they said I wasn't using the available credit that I have.  I use a very small fraction of it (1-3%) and always PIF.  I'm going to start carrying a small balance on a couple of cards and see what happens.  I know you should only carry a balance on one card to maximize your FICO score, but I'm going to see if carrying a balance will help me with US Bank.  At the time I applied I only had a $292 balance reporting on one card.

[MoreRewards]

Echo most replies. Discover loves when I carry a balance. I get auto credit increases a month or 2 later. I actually already received 2 small ones thiss year. After end of the year xmas shopping I received one in January PIF & then again this month after carrying balance from March. I remember last year carrying balance & getting one in July, I'd received one in Feb too whole carrying the previous years xmas balance.

My auto CLI always seem to correlate with carrying a balance vs the times I PIF which is regularly.

[-Wade-]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I have a 1000 limit discoverIT. For the first three months I always PIF. The fourth month I charged $600 to it and let it report and only payed 50 of it or something, I ended up getting a CLI to $1300 a few days afterwards. I've noticed that discover likes balances reporting. Now, since my card as the 0% intro apr, should I keep a high balance for the next 10 months, only paying $50 or so each month? (I have the money to PIF but I dont think I should if I want a CLI). Furthermore, what impact will this have on my FICO score aside from utilization? I know that fico takes into account payment history.  Will carrying a balance over from month to month ruin my fico score? I'm really considering keeping my discoverIT at ~1000 for the next several months while paying off a little more than the minimum payment because I think Ill get a CLI that way. I just dont want this to hurt the "payment history" part of my FICO score. Thanks!

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From what i have heard and know , Discover likes a bal and multiple payments each month. On the multiple payments a Discover CSR told me, that's  good and they like to see it

[Jlu]

IME

High balances = no CLI (auto or manual)

Low balance = auto CLI

No balance = could go either way

[Anonymous]

Thanks, seems like most people corroborated my beliefs. Can anyone address the credit ding Ill take by leaving a balance (aside from utilization what else will suffer)? IF any?

[j_casteel]

The minimal drop for util shouldn't matter unless you plan on apping. That's when you should want to maximize your FICO scores.