Happy

I dont know - because I went to recon for my UA personal when still have a UA biz, and with 9 cards in 2014, 2 cards in 2015. I dont bother to look at how many in 2013 - got to be around the same ballpark number or even more. All the rep cared about was for me to tell him whether to relocate line from existing card or to swap a card out. And I am at 60+K with Chase.

The "loss" is way too high to get a clean plate so to get the Chase cards. Seriously I dont see how CSP is attractive other than the transferability. Citi's Premier card is a far better product now Citi totally revamped its TYP program, and the Premier has a superior category earning rates than CSP. Gas is included in the Travel category - this would be very useful to many.

Also I can understand the appeal of the Southwest cards because of the benefits of the CP. Still I dont believe you need to sacrifice other cards in order to get the Southwest down the road as initially planned.

Ink cards still seem to be attainable with the right mix.

krazykanuck

Given the recent change, I am thinking of throwing an app in for a CSP, seeing as how I want to actually be able to use my low 6 figure UR balance for something other than gift cards. Now is as good as its gonna get for me since 2 of my newest cards aren't yet appearing on my Equifax credit report, which is what Chase pulls for me (checked via Credit Karma this morning), though probably will soon.

Have had 7 new cards (9 including the 2 that aren't showing) in the past 2 years, recently closed 1 with Chase, but also a decent customer since I have checking, savings, and a mortgage with Chase.

Any experience from somebody that fits my situation?

Brugge

Of course I never meant that lowering total CL with one bank would assist with apps from another bank. My experience is that lowering your TCL with Citi will assist with instant approvals with Citi. And similarly, lowering your TCL with Chase will assist with apps from Chase.

Since I have found it usually helps, and haven't seen anyway it hurts, I now lower my TCL with every bank to just above the level I think I might actually need to use on each specific card.

Ironically, despite what some have said here, lowering your TCL does not result in lower CLs on new cards, it instead leads to higher CLs on new cards.

StartinSanDiego

In answer to question number 2, yes, Southwest cards are co-branded with Southwest airlines, so that is a non-proprietary card.

For question 1: So let's just assume, based on today's data, that your ability to get duplicate Chase cards in the future is limited, and repeated sign up bonuses are not an influencing factor. No churning...

For myself, the Sapphire is of limited benefit compared to the Inks or Freedoms. If you eat out a lot, the Sapphire may suit you better, but our family does not have much restaurant spending, so that benefit is of minimal use to us. Likewise, many of the Freedom 5x categories are of limited use to us, but, for the occasional rotating categories, such as gas, grocery, and Amazon, it's fantastic. The big difference is the Freedom is FREE! No annual fee. So there will never be a quandary about whether or not you've gotten a fee waiver to entice you to hang on to it, or if you spent/will spend enough in a particular bonus category to keep it in your wallet. It can sit in your wallet forever, adding to your average age of accounts. The Sapphire will have to be evaluated yearly. That $95 is quite a bit, year after year, when the wallet is bulging with cards facing a similar evaluation. Unless you really maximize the bonus categories, you'll have to get $95 worth of benefit over and above FREE.

However, you can get the Sapphire, and, eventually, downgrade to the Freedom. That might be your best bet. Get the sign up bonus, downgrade when the annual fee kicks in, in a year.


As far as lowering CL's...here's a counter point to the very valid discussions on lowering the banks' risk... I certainly see the benefit to this if you are able to, but, well, ya'll must spend a whole lot less than the SD household. High spenders have a completely different overlay. I actually USE the CL's... one of my Inks is a paltry 5K... I have to plot and plan so as not to exceed it. When it's too much to keep track of, I put the card away. I couldn't do anything with a 2K CL, auto approvals or no auto approvals, that card would be sock drawered as useless. I don't disagree with you that excessive exposure for the bank is a huge factor in approvals, I'm just pointing out that to some people, a 20K line is not excessive at all. Not all my cards get monthly use, but many (that are not duplicate products) of them do, and it's just one extra step to keep track of what the CL's are when they are under 15 or 20K. I prefer to have a buffer between spend and CL, of at least 50%. So a 20K card could get 10-15K in spend, but I'd usually pay it down or off before it posts. Especially the personal cards... the business cards give me some leeway and I appreciate not having to micromanage their billing/payment cycles. I also don't like to have to manage the charges prior to billing statement end, but sometimes I do out of necessity. It's just so many more things to keep track of-- when the CL's are high, I have the luxury of not having to check and double check. That's another reason why I hang onto a Bold... I love charge cards better than credit cards. It's got a 30K or so soft CL and is the most used card I have. Our household has at least 20 open credit cards. The ones I use the most, top of the wallet, are the ones where the CL hasn't been chopped down to bits by reallocation or too many products per issuer.

So, as with all things in this world, much depends on YOUR particular needs, spend patterns and travel goals. Many, if not most, people can easily work within the confines of low CL's and reap the benefits of easier approvals on more cards. But that doesn't work for everybody.

starbuk

Lowering credit limits does not always lower your FICO score because sometimes you "maxed out" the benefit to your score with all the credit you have across all your cards. When you are past this high limit, then getting more credit or less credit does not matter unless it plunges you below the high limit. This is why if you have only 1 or 2 cards and start churning, getting more credit in the process, your score goes up.

I know this from personal experience and from FICO credit simulating software.

BOSOGG

VERY well said.
It is a lot easier to MS 10k/month on a card with a 20k CL than a card with a 2k CL.

Brugge

We do have and use a C/P. Got enough points from the 2 sign up bonuses that we haven't paid anything more than the @$5 pp tax per flight since we got it. For the short hop to SF to go to the Wine Country, or even the 3 hour flight to ABQ to go to Santa Fe, SW is fine. Can't really imagine using 25K miles to still end up in economy anyway. And domestically, FC is only marginally better than Economy. Maybe for coast to coast, at over 5 hours, I'd want FC, or even better the new J with total lay flat. But on short flights I actually like SW better than the legacy carriers.

Best of all with SW is the totally free cancelation policy. I can book a sale price award flight ($=points) that we might or might not want to actually take. Then for no cost at all cancel it and get the points automatically re-deposited in my account, incredibly up to 15 minutes before departure time. I'd never hold the reservation that long if I wasn't going to use it, but it's incredibly generous.

Same thing happened to me a year or 2 ago. Chase Recon CSR said he was going to recommend approving my app, but it would have to go to review with a Senior Credit Analyst due to "the high level of credit you have with us". I offered to move some from other cards, but no, it had to be reviewed.

My TCL with Chase was over that magic $60K. I was approved, but I got the message and lowered my Chase TCL down to $25K, which is still way more than I need anyway. Haven't need to call Recon since then (but I haven't done a Chase app since the new policy went into effect).

I agree on going with what works, and have never paid for CRs either. But Barclays gives me my TU Fico, and Citi has recently started giving me my EXP Fico, for free. The links are right on the cc webpages. Not sure what it means that TU has me at 783 and EXP has me at 830, but since almost everyone uses EXP for me, I'm not going to worry about the low TU score.

StartinSanDiego

Exactly! Does anybody even bother to MS on a 2K CL? I would think it raise a ton of red flags to cycle the spending/payments in any kind of meaningful way.

And then factor in the "did the big charge post?" or "Did my payment post?" and adding up the math, and it's a huge hassle to actually use the cards with low credit lines. Sometimes those charges go invisible for a few days, just for added entertainment. If the card is that much trouble, I'll reach for something else that doesn't involve so much work to use. That 5K Ink card of mine is a constant hassle... I've even gone to the bank to pay it so the payment is immediately recorded. What a PITA!

Brugge

Really? I don't think anyone here would suggest to lower the CL on a card you charge $10K a month to $2K. But on a card like the IHG, that I keep mainly for the annual certificate, and almost never use, $250 would be plenty.

Those of us who are advocating lowering TCLs are doing so because we are churning 15 or 20 cards a year. So we are never going to MS move than $5K a month on any card (those who do humongous MS for a living with cash back cards excepted). Even with my recent Prestige card, where the in branch offer was a sign up bonus of 60K points for $15K in min spnd, I was given 12 months to complete that. I'll probably finish that $15K off in around 4 months, but still don't need more than $5K CL to do it.

None of this applies to someone with $200K a month in business expenses, nor to those with 7 figure incomes. Since we're not in either category, we never have the problem of running out of CL on a card with a $5K limit. Our problem is having our MS limited to 3 RBs and 2 T-M accounts. We would prefer to spend much more on our several dozen open ccs than we can afford to do, based on transaction costs and time limitations. YMMV

BOSOGG

No need for the condescending "Really?"
I was just agreeing with what I view as a valid counter opinion.
StartinSanDiego even introduced their blasphemy with this intro.....
here's a counter point to the very valid discussions on lowering the banks' risk...

wiroly

Is that even necessary since I've now already been approved for all three of the main UR cards? I am considering one or two of their co-branded hotel/airlines cards at the end of the year.

Brugge

Sorry you took it so personally, I didn't mean it that way. I don't know you, and we haven't been cross posting, so I have no opinion about you. Just thought the suggestion of lowering a cc you use to MS $10K a month down to a $2K CL was rather silly. It seemed to be a caricature of what several of us were saying.

BTW, I still don't understand what this "valid counter opinion" might be?

Do you disagree that having an excessive TCL with a bank lowers the likelihood of getting instant approvals. Maybe even approvals at all if really excessive. Or like RNE, do you not even view instant approvals as desirable?

Despite starting out with "very valid discussion" the OP seems to be trying to refute what some of us are saying, but in the process simply reaffirms it.

Because the OP is not reducing CLs on cards that don't need it, that INK card was issued with a paltry $5K CL. So now the OP doesn't have the CL needed on the INK, because the CLs weren't reduced on cards that don't get much use:

Uh-huh, those are the ones you reduce to $2K, so that when you apply for an INK, you end up with $15K to 20K. Then you decide get to decide where you need to keep the CL high, and where you don't need it to be high at all. Rather than being ham-strung with a low CL on a high use card that resulted from keeping excessive CLs on low use cards.

What part of that do you have a "valid counter opinion" about? Because, trust me, no one here was suggesting that you reduce the CL to $2K on a card you intend to use for massive MS.

reflexpoint

I recently posted about being denied a Chase Freedom for having too many credit card accounts in the last 2 years. I sent an sm Chase asking if they could switch my Slate to a Freedom which they agreed to do. So for those of you stuck in my position, I guess that's a last option. At least I can now get the category bonuses. I just wish there was a way to get the signup bonus as well.

Brugge

Not necessary at all. So long, that is, that you aren't interested in getting instant approvals on those cards. And won't care if when you have to go to Recon they deny your apps based on "too much CL with us already".

Brugge

Not everyone gets this yet, so I guess I need to spell it out. There is a point where Chase decides you have too much credit with them compared to your income and credit history. At that point, they will NOT let you move CL around, and will not let you close another Chase card. They will simply deny your app, no matter how eloquent your pleas.

The way you can tell you are approaching that limit is when, despite a healthy income, and a high Fico, you have to call Recon for approval and still only get a $5K CL. That means you are entering into dangerous CL territory. Keep on that way, without proactively lowering your TCL, and one day they will simply say NO, and you will have no other options to get approved.