stevento

We are fortunate to have relatively high annual income, well into 1%.
But I still enjoy churning as much as the next guy.
I get the feeling lately that reporting my true income on applications is working against me.
I think it may be falling outside some approval algorithms and requiring more information.
All of the income is fully legitimate and comes from a legitimate business, so nothing to worry about there.
But I wonder if reporting lower income on cc apps might save me a few phone calls to the reconsideration line.

Does any of that make sense?

abk

I just applied for the Citi Prestige card and was escalated up three levels before receiving approval. My feeling is that it may not be income as much as available credit. In my case I have two AA Citi cards with high limits as well as Chase and Amex cards. After literally an hour on the phone I ended up with the card with the limit I wanted but had to trade off some credit on one of the other Citi Cards ( which I intend to cancel anyway). I also think it would have helped to have had a Citi banking relationship. I contrast this with the Amex Schwab Platinum card I received a couple of months ago which was a no brainer as they can see your accounts.

mapleg

All kinds of people with high incomes become unacceptable credit risks. A quick perusal of a list of celebrities and sports stars would make that point.

I remember all my training on the C's of credit and by far the most important one is "Character". Over use of credit, churning, too much credit availability all trigger "caution" flags to most lenders.

Misrepresenting your income on what is supposed to be a truthful credit application indicates character. Get caught doing that and they just may decide not to issue any credit at all.

garykung

It is impossible to tell when you say nothing regarding your credit situation.

At the minimum, making $1 million per year does not mean you have a good credit.

stevento

that is very true. In my case, though, credit scores are 780+, and utilization rate is 12%.

tetris55

I have good credit (around 800) and low credit utilization. I applied for my 3rd and 4th card of the year. However, this time I ran into a similar issue. I recently saw a large bump income due to a new job. I used this information on both applications and have had to go through multiple phone calls and verifications rather than the automatic approval I had 2 months ago with old income used.

Perhaps in my case they are concerned that I am misrepresenting my income as suggested in the character comment above.

garykung

How about your existing credit relationship with the bank you applied?

Credit is about consistency. A sudden bump does not make the issuers comfortable.

stevento

It's across different issuers..I bank at Chase and have over $100K+ in deposits with them. With other banks, it's a typical FTer profile of many open and closed accounts over the last 5+ years.

garykung

If they are all credit card accounts, then the open-and-close is probably the reason.

Also - have you reported that income for some time, or just now?

stevento

Open-and-close may be the reason...just wondering if there are other factors in play.

The income has grown over the years, but not a drastic increase in relative terms.

deant

What is your total credit limit relative to your income? If that is very high, the 12% utilization could be causing a concern.

TOMFORD

No. Credit decisioning is on relative income, relative debt to income, etc. You making 200K in NYC is no better off than someone making half that much in some dump like Wyoming.

sdsearch

As a long time Citi churner (pre everything going 18/24 months, of course), I used to get a lot of instant approvals with them. Then I moved, and my new address had a long street name which was differently abbreviated by everyone, and I don't know if that had anything to do with it or not, but since that move I've never gotten another instant approval from Citi. Yet my income didn't change a single bit, nor did my credit score change significantly, and it's around 800 or so from those banks that give it to me free on their websites.

So I'm guessing that in my case it was either moving (number of years at address dropped from 19 to 0 and is now only up to 3), and/or the complicated mailing address, that led to instant approvals vanishing for me at Citi.

(I don't have a long history of "frequent" churning at other banks, so I don't have as clear a before-and-after picture at other banks as at Citi.)

garykung

I believe this is not the case.

Your current address should be with the CRAs already . If Citi (or other issuers) is not certain about your address, it can always ask for the proof. In other word, it should further delay the approval process.

But if a call to recon line can resolve this, then it is not likely to be the address.