Inactive Account to Active Status

[Anonymous]

Hello, First post! My question is this-- I have one main credit card I use that has a 12,000 limit. I have to use this for business travel a lot and will typically have anywhere from $2,000-$8,000 reported as my balance each month, even though I pay it off in full when I get reimbursed. When looking at my credit report I discovered I have an old Discover card account that has a 0 balance with a $1600 limit and is listed as inactive, but not closed. Is an inactive account (but not closed) already taken into consideration as part of my total credit limit? ie: If I make it active again by actually using it will that help my score? Thanks!

[Tuscani]

Welcome! Assuming it is not actually closed it is benefiting you. You could call Discover to confirm.

[Anonymous]

The "main card" with a $2K-$8K monthly, have you asked for credit line increase. Since credit utilization is based on your total credit available having a higher limit would help you not get hit for using 50%+ of your available credit.

If you have relatively good credit and a card that you have about $50K in activity per year on a $12K limit that you routinely pay down most credit providers would increase your line. Recently I requested USAA increase my credit line for a similar reason. The card had a $2K limit and I was puting most of my expenses on it (avg about $500-$1200 / month). When I asked for the credit line increase I didn't state how much. I was hoping they would double it to $4K or maybe $5K if I was lucky. USAA bumped the credit line from $2K to $23K. Now my "monthly use" is 5% and it is always listed as a positive in my reports.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the Tip. I looked in Quicken and I've charged and paid off in full over $46,000 in the past year, so I went online and requested a bump in credit to 15000 to test the waters and it was instantly approved without a credit pull. I'll probably try to bump it up to 20,000 in a month or two.