Trying to escape toy card h*ll!!!

[HeavenOhio]

@sobetrader, only add yourself as an AU if:

1. The card has no baddies (late payments, etc.)

2. You can be assured that it’ll report a balance of zero every month.

Search the forum for AZEO. That would optimize the utilization portion of your score and should net you a noticeable point gain. The summarized version of AZEO is that you report a tiny balance on one card with the rest reporting zero. The balance should be at least $5, but not much more than that. You don't have to stop using your cards to do this. Simply pay them down to your desired balances before they report to the bureaus.

AZEO isn’t necessary for all people at all times. But it’s a good for those who have low scores or for those who are about to apply for important credit.

[sobetrader]

Yes and yes....I will research the AZEO method, thank you.

[Dalmus]

With a 629 score, I would be surprised if you got something significantly higher for a SL.

Have you checked the prequal pages for Discover and CapitalOne?  CapOne is unlikely to significantly increase the limit on your current card, but is fairly likely to give you a bigger limit on a new card.  Although, again, with a 629 score, I'm not sure it's worth any HP to chance it.

You said you cleaned your report as much as you could... What baddies are still on it?

[sobetrader]

What remains is 1-30day late from 18mos ago on Discover (already talked to Exec office for removal no dice) 5 paid COs that are a year old from the payoff date.
The Good: 9 open current revolving TLs (never late)
Avg age about 2.5 yo on those
And my oldest tl is a 15yr old student loan

[Anonymous]

Being added as an AU won't necessarily give you a higher CL for new cards you open. Also, it depends on what a higher CL is for you. I was added as a AU on a card that had 8-year PIF history with a 25k CL. Yes, it helped me score a card outside of my toy Discover; I was approved for a Cap1 with a 3k CL, JetBlue Mastercard with 2K CL, and AMEX Gold which I used 90% of the time because it keeps my utilization low. What's really helping is aging my cards, keeping the utilization low, and paying in full each month.

[sobetrader]

Thats the kind of starting limits Im looking for my highest unsecured line currently is $750😶, before the rebuild my highest was NFCU 5k that CO, its paid now of course.

[SunriseEarth]

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@sobetraderwrote:
What remains is 1-30day late from 18mos ago on Discover (already talked to Exec office for removal no dice) 5 paid COs that are a year old from the payoff date.
The Good: 9 open current revolving TLs (never late)
Avg age about 2.5 yo on those
And my oldest tl is a 15yr old student loan

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COs are brutal things to reports.   If you still have a balance due, they affect UTIL and the updated reporting makes them appear recent.   If you've paid or settled, definitely make sure they reflect a zero balance and "paid in full" or even a "settled in full" remark.   You should also look into sending out GW letters.   The key to that is persistence; it typically takes many, many requests to get GW removal.

Aside from that, the biggest ways you can help are to keep a good payment history and to keep UTIL down.   You can use cards as much as you need, but you may need to pay down before statement dates in order to optimize UTIL.

[sobetrader]

Yes all COs are pif or settled and the remarks reflect that, all have 0 balances.
I have not tried to GW them yet perhaps that will be my next initiative. From everyone’s responses seems like current utl is the culprit holding me back from getting increases, as I stated before the Amex I’m being added to will knock my utl down to about 25%, once that starts reporting I’m going to try getting my credit limit raised on my Citi DP card which started as a secured and graduated as of last year. If I have success there I’m going to try and add a second product from them and see if that new card starts at a higher limit being that I will then have a high limit tl on my report.

[SBR249]

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@sobetraderwrote:
Yes all COs are pif or settled and the remarks reflect that, all have 0 balances.
I have not tried to GW them yet perhaps that will be my next initiative. From everyone’s responses seems like current utl is the culprit holding me back from getting increases, as I stated before the Amex I’m being added to will knock my utl down to about 25%, once that starts reporting I’m going to try getting my credit limit raised on my Citi DP card which started as a secured and graduated as of last year. If I have success there I’m going to try and add a second product from them and see if that new card starts at a higher limit being that I will then have a high limit tl on my report.

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I think you may be jumping the gun a bit there. One of the biggest issues that you may be overlooking is that utilization is calculated on both an aggregate level and on a per card basis. Both metrics factor into your credit score and profile and both are equally important. It won't matter if you have an AU card with high CL that appears to knock your overall util way down if the rest of your cards are at 60% average util across the board. That and the fact that your one high-limit, low-util card is actually an AU card will be a huge red flag for lenders who will think that you are just trying to game the system to get more credit and pile on more debt. So before you do anything with trying to get CLIs or apping new TLs you need to tackle your util and get them down to at least below 50% on all cards and ideally below 30% or even below 9% on most or all of them. Once you have that sorted out then you can move forward with new TLs or CLIs. 

[sobetrader]

Makes sense, there is alot of conflicting information out there on utl though, even on this site I have seen overall utl and per card utl.