What are the steps to getting high limits?

[Open123]

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@Cdnewmanpac wrote:

It depends on both why you have low limits and what your income is. If you have low income and a thin or damaged file, then slow and steady is really the only option. If you have higher income or a change in income, it is possible to escalate quite quickly. 

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+1

Slow and stead will work for anyone, regardless of income, assets, or otherwise.  Of course, there are some degrees of variance; but, in general, the democratization of our CR system will allow anyone who is responsible to build relatively high CLs on the slow and steady plan.

However, if you do have high income and high spending (i.e., business expenses) with Amex or Chase, you can experience meteoric rises in CL, to $25k within a year.

[enharu]

+1 to what open and snacktrader said.

Income is a big determinant, but from what I have seen generally a 5 digit income can help with higher limits. You don't need to make millions to get a 25k CL, though the higher the income the more it's going to help.

However, the most important factor is still going to be what's in your CR. Lenders are not going to issue you a high CL if you have any recent or major derogs on file, regardless of how high your income is.

[xerostatus]

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@enharu wrote:
+1 to what open and snacktrader said.

Income is a big determinant, but from what I have seen generally a 5 digit income can help with higher limits. You don't need to make millions to get a 25k CL, though the higher the income the more it's going to help.

However, the most important factor is still going to be what's in your CR. Lenders are not going to issue you a high CL if you have any recent or major derogs on file, regardless of how high your income is.

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I'd definitely echo the above statement.

I had lackluster credit up until mid-2013. Although no major baddies (aside from 1-30 day late from 2010), my util was as high as 80+%.

I was still playing around with the likes of CreditOne and whatnot;

But I really tackled my credit situation hard and fast, brought util down to as low as 10~15%.

Then I started getting approved for some "prime cards" but nothing higher than 2500.

With the extra cards/limits combined with my continued efforts to aggressively tackle my previous debt(s), brought my util as low as 1%.

So I continued to keep a clean nose and app'd for the duck card (12k), then NFCU (15K+15K).

So, the "formula," so to speak, for me was: solid credit history, solid score, reasonable income.

I'm still relatively young, so I dont have the time factor playing into the situation all that positively, so really just comes down to your credit profile.

Get those balances down, keep building that solid history, and higher credit limits are inevitable, in my opinion.

[wHiTeSoL]

You can always try the "easy" route, though it's not guarantee. We all agree that having high limits already increases that chances of a "high limit" instant approval, so many people have had success opening up a secured card and throwing a large sum of money on it. Throwing 10k on a secured card will improve your odds. Investment wise it's a terrible idea and it ties that money up for a good amount of time but it's pretty straightforward and anyone can do it.

[Chris679]

My advice would be to keep utilization low but make sure you are actually using the cards you want to increase the CLI on.  You can request online with a soft pull for most but it is wise to expect a hard pull anyways.  You can usually increase with soft pull every 6 months (90 days for some) and keep doing that until you get where you want to be.  To minimize hard pulls only request every 1 or 2 years around the same time each year so the old ones fall off as the new ones go on your report.  I like to do this around tax time (what I like to call "credit season").  Also, don't hesitate to call the backdoor numbers to credit analysts, account managers, etc.  The normal CSRs will be no help but if you get a hold of someone who can actually look at your file and let your situation you can have great luck.

[mxp114]

I aggressively sought high lines and was pretty successful in getting them. However besides income, having the spend to justify the lines plays a critical role too.

[daybreakgonesXe]

For me, slow and steady won the race, but I believe income helped very much as well.

I initially had 2 credit cards about a month apart, one with $1500 (a secured Orchard i added deposits to from the initial $200) and a JCP (CLI from $500 --> $1800 at the time), and a student loan opened up later that year. I forgot I also applied for a Shell gas card a little after the year mark, and only got $800. However, by the year and a half mark of credit history, I app'd for Chase Freedom, and received an outstanding $7k limit!

That was my first >$5k limit. I have since built up my profile, and thanks to this site asked for CLIs and product changes to build my profile to what it is today.

Some people find slow and steady is the best way; others find that barrelling your way to >$5k-dom works as well (adding deposits to secured lines, reconning limits, frequent CLIs (both hard and soft, adding yourself as an AU onto high limits). I personally prefer the slow and steady because the only thing I've ever been denied was a Sallie Mae student loan, and that was because my mother had the brilliant idea of applying for it during the 2011 debt ceiling crisis with only a few days to go before the money was suppose to run out. Many lenders were being more than conservative at the time, obviously! I did have a decently young history (approx 1 year) that played a factor, but I'm sure gov't money issues also seem to make private banks more wary than normal!

[Anonymous]

And, my usual wonder of what you plan to do with high credit limits.  Providing you have enough money to pay off your credit cards each month (so you can micromanage utilization), and the limits are not so small that you have to pay several times a month, high CLs really are not ALL that important.

[Untitled]

How likely is it that a person with around a 30,000 income can get a credit card for 10,000+?

[emptypockets]

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@mxp114 wrote:

I aggressively sought high lines and was pretty successful in getting them. However besides income, having the spend to justify the lines plays a critical role too.

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I thinks slow and steady is the way to play the game. If you start slow with 300-1000k limits, and use them frequently (and PIF, or at least keep util very low) eventually you will see CLI's. You have to be smart about which cards you pick, many people (myself included) got a bunch of cards with no clear reason as to why we apped, or what the card could do for us. While building credit and lines, it is important to show usage on the cards, and an impeccable payment record. It is hard to get higher limits and such with baddies on your record.

For me, it was important to get cards in a order that makes sense (i.e. from research on the boards, I knew not to app for Chase before I had a few 5k limits showing, because they would likely give a toy limit as well). Cards like GECRB,  CU's, and even Citi seem to be more likely to give SP increases to get your limits up to the higher limits.

You cannot be in a rush, anything worth having takes time.

mxp, I always wanted to ask you...how did you get a 25k limit on your BB MC? Mine is stuck at 10k, and they are telling me that is the limit for that card.