In the last year, I've really been working hard to get my scores up after school nearly bankrupted me. In October, I got a BoA card with a $500 limit (~23%) thinking that with regular credit line increases (as advertised), I could really get back in good shape. Well, when I applied, it turns out that my "emerging credit" never secured card was not eligible for credit line increases. I recently decided to apply for another, larger card. No late payments in two years, though some (resolved) baddies from 2004 and 2005 still hanging out and two unresolved collection accounts from 2006. My latest credit scores were 680 and 697 this month, so I'm 100+ points better than I was this time last year.
So I was feeling good when I applied for a specialty card at BoA, not as great when I apped for another platinum at BoA, terrible by the time I got to Citibank. Dinged everywhere! I felt like my scores were good enough, and that I was far enough away from the dark days of 2005.
Anyway, I've been a member of USAA since 1995, mainly for car insurance. I switched my checking there earlier this year (Feb-March), and am happy to report that they just granted me a $5k platinum mastercard. As of last night I was afraid I was another 6-9 months away from even a $1k credit limit, so I'm just totally thrilled!
I was putting off applying there because some of the strings have said that they are more stringent, and that FICO doesn't look as fondly at USAA as the big banks, but as others have said, I think the big credit line more than makes up for that by bringing my util so far down. So excited!