I’ve been worried semi-ill the last several days because I have something wrong with my car that will someday soon cause it to stop running without notice. I’ve been running and re-running the numbers trying to figure out a way to pay for it.
I log on to one of my credit cards today to pay it and discover that the company has unexpectedly raised my limit. Which means that I’ll be able to pay for the repair. OK, I won’t actually be able to pay for the repair but I’ll be able to have the work done. Which means that I won’t die in a firey crash when the engine fails in the middle of highway traffic. Hooray!
Depends. Part of my work is with credit cards for several dozen banks and none of them will automatically raise a limit just upon being asked and people who ask for limit increases have to be credit checked before approval.
Besides, if I asked for it then it wouldn’t be unexpected, now would it?
I have generally found that by paying off a lump sum (either by transfering a balance or really actually paying it off) my credit limit has increased nicely.
Without getting into a “How high is your credit limit” competition my Halifax credit card were quite happy to extend me £12k.
I got my first credit card about 18 months ago (You’re opening a student account here at Large American Bank? Great! Here, have some more debt options!). I started with a $1000 credit limit, which was dangerous to begin with. So I decided I’d just treat it like a debit card: If I didn’t have the money to spare in my account, I would not use the card.
This past month I had to carry a balance for the first time (going back to school full-time in January, leaving London in December, figure I may as well have some fun my last few weeks here). The day that they got my payment, my credit limit jumped up to $1300.
Vultures, I tell you. Must not yield to temptation…
Heh, you want to talk about student credit increases, the first one I got had a paltry $300 limit. Only 3 years later it is up to $3k without ever asking for an increase.
I have one card that will up my limit randomly (although they haven’t in a while… it’s due to expire soon, though, so I expect something might happen then!) They also always end up with a bizarre limit… it won’t be (for example) 2500$ it’ll be 2600$ or 8400$ instead of 8500$. Very weird.
My other card, which is through my bank, never ups my limit, and asking them seems to be an affront of some sort. And they can only up it to certain fixed values (at least, last time I asked). For example, as a student, when I first got it, my limit was 500$. After a while I decided to ask that they bring it up to 1500$, but they couldn’t. It had to either be 1000$ or 3000$… the first was, I think, not enough, and the second was too high for what I was comfortable with at the time. I think I just said forget about it, and upped it later to something else, when I had more income and felt more comfortable with it.
It all seems pretty Zen. I used to pay my card in cash at the bank. If I payed off the minimum or a bit more, they’d just say “Thank you sir, have a nice day.” If I paid them several hundred dollars, they’d always ask me if I would like to increase my limit. I always said no. Then one day I got sick of them asking, and I thought, “Why not?” So I applied for an extra $1000, and got REFUSED. Several years later, when I’d not been near a bank for a long time because I paid the card online, I got a letter from them saying that I was pre-approved for a limit increase of a further $5000! I sent back the form, and my limit was promptly jacked up by $5k.