Credit Limit Increases - How to Get Highest Credit Card Lines from Amex, Chase, Capital One, Citi...

hey i'm adam jusko from probablymoney.com and in this video we are going to look at how to maximize your credit limits on your credit cards look at some of the rules around asking for credit limit increases but first i'm going to ask you to please subscribe to this youtube channel if you have not already and if you have already i thank you for doing so so credit limit increases is sort of a hot topic oftentimes if you are someone that is newer to credit or maybe if you are someone that is rebuilding your credit in this video we're going to talk about how you may ask for a credit line increase with the different major issuers how often you should do it how much you should ask for and then we'll look at some of the rules that are specific to some of them whether they do a hard or soft pull whether they have a timeline of how often you can ask all that kind of stuff now there are usually two reasons that you may want a credit limit increase or maybe you'll will want one for both of these reasons number one is that if you just simply don't have a big enough credit line on a credit card you have if you only have 200 bucks or 500 bucks and it is difficult for you to use that credit card because you feel like you can't really buy a whole lot on it well then you may want a credit limit increase now the number two reason and maybe the more common reason for a lot of people and maybe the reason you're watching this video is because of the fact that when you have more credit lines that have higher limits then you can help your credit score because then you are having a lower utilization so the relationship between the amount of debt or the balance that you have on those cards in relation to your available credit is part of your credit score called credit utilization sometimes called uh debt to credit ratio whatever term you want to use for it basically you can help your credit score if you have higher credit lines because then whatever those balances are that you're using you aren't using as much of that credit that's available to you an important point to make here is that having higher credit lines does not mean that you are more wealthy some people get a little obsessed sometimes with getting higher and higher credit limits for no particular purpose and this is something that can backfire on you if banks see that you continually are increasing your credit lines either with them or with other banks they could deny your request for more credit or they could even decrease your credit line on their card if they feel like you're getting too much credit elsewhere so think about whether you really need a credit line increase right now when you ask for one or whether maybe it can or should wait because ideally your credit limit increases should come organically meaning that the bank gives them to you without you even asking for them so when you are younger or newer to credit oftentimes you are going to be started with lower credit lines but as time goes on and you continue to do the right things with your cards the banks are going to look at your history and without you doing anything oftentimes they're just going to increase the amount of your credit line and oftentimes they're going to increase the amount of your credit line maybe more than you would have even asked for if you had done it yourself because when it comes from their end they are sort of offering you more credit and so they are maybe more likely to be more generous where if you're the one asking then they start to get a little suspicious well why do you need more credit so that's the number one way to increase your credit limits is to do the right things with your credit cards and sort of wait for the bank to come to you now the bank doesn't always come to you as fast as you would want them to or maybe they don't come to you at all so if you are feeling a little impatient with that idea one thing you definitely can do to try to prod the bank is if your income has increased since you got your credit card make sure the bank knows that you can usually go online and change that information right online sometimes they're going to pop up windows right in front of you to ask you to update your information because they want to know if you are making more money because then they are apt to give you a higher credit line and this is something that is often underestimated by uh new card holders in particular they sort of think that your credit history and your credit score is the only thing that is important and your income is super important so if it changes if you're making more now than you were when you got a card make sure the bank knows that and they are more likely than to come to you with the idea of increasing your credit line now i understand you might not want to wait for the bank to come to you you might want to proactively go to them and ask for that credit line increase that you want and so we'll talk about kind of how to handle that but before you ever go looking for a credit line increase you should make sure that you are the type of card holder that a bank would want to give a credit limit increase to that means are you using the card that you're going to be asking for a credit line increase on are you paying your bills on time are you making at least the minimum payment do you pay off that card in full sometimes because the bank is going to want to see that you are someone that uses the card responsibly and that your debt isn't just getting bigger and bigger and bigger and you're asking for more credit because you need more credit to you know sort of uh handle the purchases that you're making and the debt that you are building up so they want to see that you can handle some debt sure they want to make some money off of you but they don't want to think that if they give you more credit eventually you're going to max out the card and then default now assuming you have shown yourself to be a worthy card holder the general rule of thumb in terms of how often you can ask for a credit limit increase with any one particular issuer is once every six months and this makes sense because any time period less than six months there's not really enough new information about you since that card was opened or since the last time they gave you an increase that's going to lead them to think that things have changed a whole lot and that you deserve that credit limit increase so six months is a good time to see if you've continued to make your payments on time if you've continued to keep your balances at a reasonable level now what you may want to do if you have multiple credit cards is sort of stagger when you ask for those credit line increases if you ask for a credit line increase from card number one today maybe you ask for a credit line increase from card number two three months from now and then three months after that maybe you can go back to credit card number one and ask for a credit line increase there if you feel like you need that so that's one way to sort of make it feel like you're still you know being able to try and push those credit lines a little bit now that once every six month rule of thumb that i just said some people are going to tell you that that is too conservative but i am trying to think over the long haul most credit card companies are not going to like it if you are asking for increases too often and that six months is something that is reasonable without it looking like you're getting very greedy for credit so the next question is how much should you ask for from the banks when you want a credit limit increase they're probably going to ask you what do you want instead of just you know coming up with a number although in some cases they will just say yes or no and tell you how much they are willing to give you in many cases they are going to ask you what exactly you want and so that puts you in the position of saying oh i don't know how much should i ask for there's no hard and fast rule here but i would say that if you are someone that has a lower credit line you're probably going to ask for more or be able to get more relative to that credit line than someone with a higher credit line i'm not talking about actual dollars here i'm talking about relative to where you started and what i mean by that is if you start with a 500 credit line and you ask for a credit line increase you can say you know i like the card and i've been using it but it's only 500 and i can't use it as much as i would like to if they see you've been doing everything right with that card and you say i'd like to bump that up to two thousand dollars well they might say yes even though that's four times the credit line that you had before it's still only fifteen hundred dollars in actual dollars however if you have a five thousand dollar credit line you say i like the credit card but uh you know five thousand dollars isn't enough for me i'd like to have twenty thousand dollars well that's four times five thousand dollars but you're probably a lot less likely to get that unless you've shown that you have the income and that you are you know spending a lot on that card already they're not going to just give you 15 000 more even though in relative terms it's sort of the same request now most of the major credit card issuers will let you ask for a credit limit increase online of the banks that i consider to be major chase and wells fargo do make you call in but all of the other ones do have online request forms i think bank of america sort of comes and goes depending on whether they think that you might be eligible for one or not but anyway most of them will let you ask online and when they do they are usually going to ask you how much you want and then they're going to ask you questions about your income and how much you have in housing costs and perhaps other costs as well so they are doing sort of another credit check on you to decide if they want to give you more credit or not and we'll talk about whether you're getting the hard inquiry or the soft inquiry in a minute but no matter how you look at it they are sort of looking at you again what's your income what are your expenses does it make sense to give you more of a credit line all right so we'll look at the rules from some of these specific major issuers around credit limit increases in a minute but let's talk first about what happens if you get turned down for your credit line increase request you could do everything right make your payments on time keep those balances low whatever and then come back six months later or maybe even longer than that and still get declined for that credit limit increase what should you do in that case well this is a time that maybe you should consider getting a new card from a bank that you are not dealing with yet the bank that is has already given you a card has decided that they don't feel good about giving you more even though you have done everything right but a different bank that doesn't have any money tied up with you yet might look at your good payment history and say this is a person that we can take the risk on and maybe we'll even give them a higher credit line than any of the other credit cards they have because we think they're a good risk and maybe we can steal them away from the companies that they have been dealing with so this very often happens you will find out that you have sort of a lower credit limit on one card but when you go and get a new card all of a sudden you get a much higher credit line from the new issuer than you ever would have been able to get from the one that has already been your customer it seems a little backwards but it often works out that way so there are times when you should decide i'm going to try and get a new credit card which obviously is going to give me more of available credit overall if i get approved for that card instead of worrying about increasing the credit lines on the cards you already have now when i talk about getting new credit cards or even credit line increases some people are going to start thinking about hard inquiries hard pulls on their credit report because they know that if they go after new credit when their credit is pulled from the major credit reporting agencies there's going to be a ding on their credit score it's going to go down to some extent usually only a few points if you're very new to credit maybe a little bit more and people get very hung up on this but i would say do not overthink it if you are approved for a new credit line over time the payments that you make on time everything you do right with that new credit card you're going to get back those points and even more even if you go after a new credit card and you get declined by that credit card most people who have bad credit or low credit scores do not have them because they have asked for credit too many times they have them because they have not paid their bills on time or maybe they are carrying a huge amount of debt in comparison to the credit lines they have doesn't mean that hard inquiries are completely unimportant and if you have a lower credit score now i understand why you would think about this but if you constantly are thinking well i'm not going to do this thing because they might ding my credit score a few points by a hard inquiry well then you're sort of hurting yourself before you even give them the chance to hurt you all right so with everything we've talked about there's sort of three rules i guess number one is maybe you should just hold off and wait for the credit card companies to come to you to increase your credit line number two if you request an increase try to be reasonable about it and make sure you have done everything right with the credit that you have so far so that they think that you are worthy number three sometimes you should just open a new credit card if you feel like you're not getting what you want or what you need from the cards that you have already all of that said let's look now at some of the rules that we know from the major credit card issuers in terms of how often they give credit limit increases whether it's a hard or soft inquiry all that kind of stuff all right american express will let you request a credit line increase online they tell you that you should wait at least 60 days after account opening so that's a little less than the six months that i have been talking about but that is after account opening if you get a credit line increase from them probably that six months is the rule you would want to use after that american express by all accounts does a soft pull not a hard pull when we're talking about credit line increases american express also is oftentimes known to be pretty generous especially with the first credit line increase that they give you in relation to what they gave you to begin with if you have used the card and you have done everything right in terms of on-time payments and not carrying too big of a debt load bank of america does allow for online requests for credit limit increases some people have said that the link is not always available to them and the theory sort of is that bank of america sometimes holds back that link or that button from people until they have enough credit history with them that maybe they would even consider them for a credit line increase so if you don't see it it is possible that it is not open to you yet now bank of america from all accounts or from most accounts does a soft pull on your credit report if they're considering you for a credit line increase and you have to worry about losing any points there next is barclays the bank behind cards such as jetblue wyndham and a lot of other travel cards as well they do allow you to ask for a credit line increase online it looks like it is a hard pull that you're going to get from barclays now capital one i said earlier once six months in between credit line increase requests but they do say that you could potentially ask for a credit line increase after three months of having the card so that very first credit line increase could come after three months and then after that assuming they gave you a first credit line increase six months before another one soft pull from capital one as far as i can tell and a lot of people say the capital one is a little stingy with their credit line increases so if you ask for a credit line increase from them you probably shouldn't expect capital one to give you a whole lot that may be a little card specific in terms of what your credit history is and they seem like they bucket their cards a little bit more where some can be increased higher than others if you don't ask for the increase capital one might actually give you more than they would if you ask them for the increase but that's sort of their reputation chase is a little less friendly to credit line increases at least they're less friendly in terms of the fact that you can't do them online you have to call in and it looks like it is a hard pull on your credit that doesn't necessarily mean that chase is going to be stingy with how much they give you but they are going to make you call them and they are going to do a hard pull in order to decide on it so it's almost like opening a new credit card again with chase citibank does let you ask for a credit limit increase online it could be a hard or soft pull depending but it looks like they will tell you beforehand which it is going to be when i go online and look at my city double cash card for instance they specifically tell me it would not be a hard pull but that is one card i'm one customer you could have a different experience but it does look like they warn you beforehand what you're gonna get discover card same thing you can request online it could be a hard or soft pull but it looks like in most cases discover is going to let you know beforehand if it is going to be a hard pull and let you get out of it if you don't want that u.s bank you can apply for a credit limit increase online looks like it is usually a soft pull wells fargo you have to call in to request your credit line increase but it does look like that is a soft pull from wells fargo as well and then finally when it comes to credit line increases do not be afraid to pick up the phone it is nice to be able to ask for an increase online and it is nice to get your response without having to sit on a phone but at times there is no replacement for speaking to a real person more and more of this stuff is automated so there's no guarantee that a customer service rep can you know give you a credit line increase that you were not going to get otherwise but sometimes you can learn some things from those customer reps even if they can't make any change maybe they can tell you well you had a late payment 11 months ago and we have to have 12 months of a clean record before we would consider a credit line increase or things of that nature things that maybe you would not know but a customer service rep could tell you at least could give you a little more insight into what your chances are in the future so if you're used to only you know emailing and texting and chatting and whatever and you want to you know work on your human relations skills you could actually get on the real phone and talk to a real human and see if that gives you any extra information that perhaps you would not have gotten and maybe even get a credit line increase that you would not have gotten otherwise that's it questions comments experiences with credit line increases would love to see all of those in that comments section below otherwise i thank you for watching and as always please go to proudmoney.com where we do credit card reviews we talk personal finance we talk deals and all sorts of other fun stuff too thank you for watching bye

Channel: ProudMoney - Credit Cards & Personal Finance

Views: 70,694

Rating: 4.9328918 out of 5

Keywords: credit limit increase, credit line increase, increased credit card limit, increase credit card limits, credit card limit increase, credit card limit, credit card limits

Id: 8Vt7R82ABWU

Length: 17min 33sec (1053 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 15 2021