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@IcyCool7227 wrote:I have fair credit. Even when I had great credit in the 730s I never got approved for a card with more than $5000 SL and never had a card past $7500. So I see a lot of posters saying they have all these $10k plus CLs but how does that happen? Do you need excellent credit or just a very high income or both?
It depends upon a few factors:
- Payment history.
- Credit score (part of payment history)
- Salary
- Spending
- the most IMPORTANT of all, TIME!
As a data point, I opened a BofA secured card in 2007 with $500 CL; it's sitting at $99,900 today. Treat your lenders well, and they'll reward you back.
@IcyCool7227How old is your oldest account? Under 10 means a bit. AAoA's helps. Income as mentioned. Like fine wine. Takes time.
And the usual PSA: don't confuse a CL (and especially Total CL) with anything like an asset! On the hopefully frequent occasions when someone offers you $500K in cash or a set of cards with a $500K Total Credit Limit, take the former! (The latter might follow...)
I think thick credit profiles help, having a history of long term credit management is a plus.
That said, the easiest ways is 0 late payments, good lenders, regular spending on the card with large payments to match. Lenders can track your recent payments to see if you're paying above the minimums, which means more capacity to pay and disposable income. Give it a few years of regular credit line increases from genrous banking partners and you'll find yourself with high limits.
Having a card with a $10k+ limit was just a dream for me as recently as a year and a half ago. Now I have five of them. Just today, one of them became my first $20k+ card.
Mostly time, and having zero late payments or other negatives. I don't make tons of money, but I'm not broke either. I pay for everything I can with credit cards. I have good credit scores, but nothing exceptional. They've slowly come up over the past couple years. I see people with lower scores and a shorter history get starting limits much higher than mine. Then I see that they make several times more money than I do. So with good scores or a lot of money, you can get there. If you have both, you've got it made. If you have neither, well, both situations can be improved. This forum will do a lot to teach you to improve your scores. You'll have to look elsewhere to learn how to improve your income. But paying on time is probably the most important factor. That's 35% of your credit score. And 100% on-time payments is way, way better than 99% on-time payments, so there's little margin for error.
Relationship, spending habits, CLIs, credit score somewhat.
Cap One gave me a SL of $30k on my Venture after spending a lot on my other Cap One cards.
Navy Fed gave me many CLIs to get to $29k and $35k on 2 different cards.
PenFed just started me at high limits.
etc.
Once you have some large cards, I do believe that it makes it easier to get more of them.
Now I have like 25 $10k+ cards.
GL!
DON'T WORK FOR CREDIT CARDS ... MAKE CREDIT CARDS WORK FOR YOU!
I was in the same boat as you, OP.
So I followed the tips on here, and they auto-CLI over time.
What moved it more quickly:
- Chase Saphire Preferred, I carried a small balance every month and never missed a payment. They seemed to like that and just kept raising the limit. Once, I did a balance transfer to my Citi Thank You Preferred card, and Chase immediately raised my limit 5k. I did it again 6 months later and they reaised it another 5k.
- Citi, when I did a balance transfer from Chase to Citi, they seemed to like that and immediately raised my limit $5k more and offered me another balance transfer (which I did not take becuase I had nothign to transfer)
The biggest factor: I never had a late payment. On anything. They just love that.
Initially it started for me with CL increases. I took what I could get, when I could get it. But I noticed it's like a snowball. Spend really helped me. Once I started ramping that up it became MUCH easier. Additionally, I noticed that when scores are over 740 or so the floodgates open.
My first 2 5 figure approvals were with Penfed, and TD Bank, who Is my personal, and business bank. Nowadays tho, it seems as if the purse strings are already tightening.
For me it just happened over time.
At first, $5000.00 was *holy cow* , then $7000 was *dang*, and $10,000.00 was *made it*
Then "goal" became $15k, $20K etc.
Limits were important till I realized it's all just fake money, the only thing that's mine is statement balance.
It's nice to have some wiggle room utilization wise, but I wish I didn't chase limits because now they are hard to justify with lack of spend in relation to limit.
Those cards are now a goal again, except this time it's getting over closephobia and having them poof
@CYBERSAM wrote:
@IcyCool7227 wrote:I have fair credit. Even when I had great credit in the 730s I never got approved for a card with more than $5000 SL and never had a card past $7500. So I see a lot of posters saying they have all these $10k plus CLs but how does that happen? Do you need excellent credit or just a very high income or both?
As others have mentioned, There are multiple factors! Also having a right bank and card makes a difference too.
For me only recent two Chase, USBANK and X1 card have been over 10K. Everything else was through CLI.
For example you can get certain CCs even with lower SL to go well over 10K.
Sync Bank: Easy to get CLI to 20K with SP
AMEX: 3X CLI with SP
Citi: About every 6 months CLI SP to around 30K
Discover: Easy CLI SP 20K+ (if they see usage)
FNBO: 20K+ CLI with SP over the phone!
I'm not even mentioning Cards from CUs.
This is basic generalization and over simplification of getting cards with right banks that can grow easy, provided you meet other conditions!
Good luck.
Lots of great feedback, but I think the bolded points ⬆️ hit the nail on the head.
Here are my thoughts: