Increasing credit limit

[tractor]

Does it hurt your credit score if you ask for an increase limit on your card and they say no? Is it possible that they will decrease your limit if you ask for an increase? I'm just curious about this. I have a $25,000 limit on one card and a $35,000 limit on another, no monthly balances.

[Deleted]

I'm just curious as to why you WANT an increase in your credit limit?

On the one hand, having a low usage to available credit does help your credit score. But if you pay it off monthly (and if you don't do that now, that should be your goal), it doesn't really matter.

A couple of times I have asked CC companies to lower the limit because I didn't want that much available credit if someone stole my card. I've become smarter about the usage to available credit thing, but if I asked my CC company, they would probably ask, "Why? You never charge more than maybe $750, and that's about once a year."

[TD2K]

No. If they do a hard pull on your credit (and it's unlikely they would since this is an existing account) your credit will take a small hit but that would happen whether you got the credit limit increase or not.

[tractor]

OK, I know my reason will make no sense to most people, but I would like my credit limit to be equal on both my cards so I was going to try for an increase on one of them to keep things in balance. That way if I decide to buy a second home (or new car) on a whim, I can just put it on my card (kidding, of course). I do use them both quite a bit and have run up the balance during some months, but they still get paid off.

[hawkeyes2001]

What I would like to know is why credit card companies send you letters in the mail telling you that you are eligible for a limit increase and then every time you call they deny it?

We have a Discover cash back card that we pay off every month. We would like to put large purchases like vacations on it to get the cash back but the low credit limit sometimes keeps us from being able to do so.

[doxieluvr]

Jan 10, 2011 16:45:20 GMT -5 tractor said:

Does it hurt your credit score if you ask for an increase limit on your card and they say no? Is it possible that they will decrease your limit if you ask for an increase? I'm just curious about this. I have a $25,000 limit on one card and a $35,000 limit on another, no monthly balances.

I requested a $4k increas on my $11k credit line, which I was going to use to transfer a higher interest balance. I was not only denied, but they lowered my credit line to $4300, just $7 more than I owed. So to answer your question, yes asking for an increase could cause them to lower your credit line.

[Deleted]

Jan 11, 2011 11:58:54 GMT -5 @hawkeyes2001 said:

What I would like to know is why credit card companies send you letters in the mail telling you that you are eligible for a limit increase and then every time you call they deny it?

We have a Discover cash back card that we pay off every month. We would like to put large purchases like vacations on it to get the cash back but the low credit limit sometimes keeps us from being able to do so.

I had Discover put a freeze on increasing my limit.
Every year they would increase it, without any notice and without my asking.
Weird how they do things differently.....

[tractor]

Jan 11, 2011 13:13:59 GMT -5 doxieluvr said:

Jan 10, 2011 16:45:20 GMT -5 tractor said:

Does it hurt your credit score if you ask for an increase limit on your card and they say no? Is it possible that they will decrease your limit if you ask for an increase? I'm just curious about this. I have a $25,000 limit on one card and a $35,000 limit on another, no monthly balances.

I requested a $4k increas on my $11k credit line, which I was going to use to transfer a higher interest balance. I was not only denied, but they lowered my credit line to $4300, just $7 more than I owed. So to answer your question, yes asking for an increase could cause them to lower your credit line.

That sucks, I guess they were really hoping you would go over your limit and be able to charge extra fees. I usually have a lot of room between and usage balance and the limit, I bet if i ask for an increase, they will lower it indicating that I never use the higher limit anyway.