Multiple Credit Card Credit Line increase requests

[tketch]

I have been advised  that a greater cerdit line will increase my FICO score ( now around 760 -  FICO 8, depending on who you ask.)  I have 4 credit cards with total of about $35k, usage < 2%, and I figure about $50k would be a better limit.    My intention is to ask all 4  Credit Card Companies for an increase all in one day.  But, I am unclear if such requests are like mortgages, where all inquiries are treated as one within a certain period of time.   Will my score get dinged for 4 inquiries, or just one with these requests?

[SouthJamaica]

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@tketch wrote:

I have been advised  that a greater cerdit line will increase my FICO score ( now around 760 -  FICO 8, depending on who you ask.)  I have 4 credit cards with total of about $35k, usage < 2%, and I figure about $50k would be a better limit.    My intention is to ask all 4  Credit Card Companies for an increase all in one day.  But, I am unclear if such requests are like mortgages, where all inquiries are treated as one within a certain period of time.   Will my score get dinged for 4 inquiries, or just one with these requests?

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Don't do it if it's a hard pull.

Some companies do a hard pull, some a soft pull.

Give us the names of the banks so we can tell you which ones are ok.

[tketch]

Thanks, 

Credit cards are:

        Discover ,

        Chase-Slate(VISA),

        Capital One (Master Card)

        USAA (Visa)

[Anonymous]

If each card's utilization isn't above 2% a credit line increase won't really help. What could help is letting only one show a balance and have everything else show $0.00.

[Anonymous]

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@tketch wrote:

I have been advised that a greater credit line will increase my FICO score ( now around 760 -  FICO 8, depending on who you ask.)  I have 4 credit cards with total of about $35k, usage < 2%, and I figure about $50k would be a better limit.   

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Whoever advised you is mistaken.  MryFlyGuy is correct -- a bigger credit limit will not in itself help your score.  Not even a fraction of a point.

To give you an example that places this in high relief, suppose you had two guys, Bob and Fred who have exactly four credit cards.  Their CC utilization, age of accounts, # of derogs, in fact virtually everything about their two profiles is the same.  The only difference is that Bob has four credit limits of $500 each, and Fred has four credit limits of $25,000 each.  Both guys will have exactly the the same credit score.  As long as their CC utilization is the same, the bigger CLs that Fred has won't make a difference.

Do you have any open installment loans?  (Auto loan, student loan, personal loan, mortgage, etc.)  If you do not, we can suggest a painless way to increase your score a lot that will cost you almost nothing.

[SouthJamaica]

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@tketch wrote:

Thanks, 

Credit cards are:

        Discover ,

        Chase-Slate(VISA),

        Capital One (Master Card)

        USAA (Visa)

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Discover and Capital One are soft pull, so you can apply for a CLI on their respective web sites without any "ding" at all.

Chase is a hard pull, so don't do it.

USAA I don't know about.

BTW I don't agree with the above 2 posts; I think having more "available credit" does help your score.

[Anonymous]

Hi SJ!  Is there any particular reason you think that?  I haven't seen FICO suggest in any of their publications that this might be the case, or seen any reason codes that might suggest that..  And I can't think of a general conceptual area that they haven't disclosed in their models, although the exact details in each case they often do not specify.  Thus, although they don't disclose exactly how each model penalizes lates, they don't make a secret that its better to have fewer lates.  They don't disclose exactly how where the break points are for CC utilization, but they are are forthright that in general you will benefit from a lower rather than a high utilization.  They don't specify the details of how age works, but they don't hide that older accounts are in general better.

If having cards with big CLs gave you extra points over cards with low CLs, it seems like they'd allude to that general fact somewhere -- much as they do in the other general areas I mentioned.

Incidentally some scoring models may very well do what you are suggesting -- e.g. the Lexis Nexis insurance score, which has reason codes that state exactly that.  (LN likes it when your average credit limit is above $10,400 -- i believe that's the number.)  I just haven't seen any evidence that FICO does that.

[rhall2009]

 Evening everyone, I feel one of 2 ways about more credit is that It doesn't boost your score to get more and more CLI if your already reporting one card with 1% total utilization. However I do see the benefit that having a higher limit on cards helps to maintain your score and reduce the fluctuations if you happend to leave more of a balance on that one said card. While it still may drop a point or two it won't dip because it will be less of a percent than had you had low limit cards.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hi SJ!  Is there any particular reason you think that?  I haven't seen FICO suggest in any of their publications that this might be the case, or seen any reason codes that might suggest that..  And I can't think of a general conceptual area that they haven't disclosed in their models, although the exact details in each case they often do not specify.  Thus, although they don't disclose exactly how each model penalizes lates, they don't make a secret that its better to have fewer lates.  They don't disclose exactly how where the break points are for CC utilization, but they are are forthright that in general you will benefit from a lower rather than a high utilization.  They don't specify the details of how age works, but they don't hide that older accounts are in general better.

If having cards with big CLs gave you extra points over cards with low CLs, it seems like they'd allude to that general fact somewhere -- much as they do in the other general areas I mentioned.

Incidentally some scoring models may very well do what you are suggesting -- e.g. the Lexis Nexis insurance score, which has reason codes that state exactly that.  (LN likes it when your average credit limit is above $10,400 -- i believe that's the number.)  I just haven't seen any evidence that FICO does that.

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From what I have observed in my own case and others, and from what I infer the various reason codes, it is easier to get high FICO scores if you have larger available credit which you're not using much.

[Anonymous]

Hello rHall.  Yup, You are definitely right.  There's no question that having big credit limits would make it easier to have a low utilization. 

To take again those two guys I gave as an examplle... Bob with four cards at $500 each and Fred with four cards at 25k each.

No question that Fred can put all his spending on one card, and spend a sizable 3-5k a month.  Without even working at it he can have all his cards at $0 except one and a total utilization of 3-5%.  In Bob's case he can also spend 3-5k per month and have the ultralow utilization, but he'll have to pay his cards down 2-3 times during that month.

So no question that it is more convenient to have big CLs.  The question is whether Fred has any scoring advantage over Bob if their utilization is the same.  I was asking SJ if he knew of any FICO literature that suggested that might be the case.