swag

I'm getting ready to close my Sapphire Preferred account, since I also have the Reserve and don't see any benefit to paying the 2nd annual fee.

I have no immediate plans for additional applications, but looking ahead to when I might. Am I better off re-allocating my existing CSP credit when I close it, or should I let my total Chase credit drop so there is some already available when I apply in the future? Which will make my next Chase card application easier?

I have a total of 5 Chase cards. The most recent one was opened earlier this month, and for that application, Chase had phoned me because they didn't want to offer me any additional credit, so the approval required moving around some of my existing credit lines.

The CSP credit line is $10K, my total available Chase credit is about $80K. If it matters, my credit score is 800+, I'm only at 2/24, and I have a high balance checking account with Chase.

mroseman13

If you transfer the credit line to another existing card and apply to another Chase card in the future that requires more credit than they're willing to allocate new to you, they'll automatically pull credit from existing accounts to fund the new card. This happened when I had the CF, CSR, and Marriott cards and applied for IHG. I wasn't too happy that my form of notification was a letter in the mail a week after they'd already changed my credit lines (what if I had a big purchase planned on one of the cards), but it was easy to call in and reallocate the total across my accounts to my specifications.

philemer

Many people, including me, believe it is easier to get a new card if your total CL with Chase isn't too high. If you are never going to use anywhere close to $80K I'd just close the card and let the $10K go bye-bye. JMHO. I keep my cards between $2K and $5K. Your call.

baroqen

+1 to what philemer said. The only time you might want to transfer your credit is if you have issues with low total credit availability, which could potentially impact your credit score utilization ratio. Since you obviously don't have that problem, I'd let the 10k go. I lost out on a big app bonus once because my application went into approval limbo, possibly due to high total credit with Chase. They couldn't contact me, since I was out of the country. I never found out exactly what happened, but since that time I have regularly reduced lines on the Chase cards that I don't intend to use much to leave at least 15k from my "peak" total from back then.

Don't assume they will do anything automatically. It's nice if they do, but... they don't always.

serpens

Is the credit score utilization ratio calculated on a per card basis or total charges divided by total credit line? If it's total charges divided by total credit line, is that on a per bank basis or over all cards from all banks? Thanks.

thunderlounge

It depends, and while bureaus don’t specifically say, I think it is a bit of both. That being per card, and overall total.

Definitely not per bank though.

mia

This Experian blog explains that the score looks both at total utilization, and individual account utilization. No mention of per-lender utilization, but obviously that lender might consider this separately from your credit score.

https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-e...lization-rate/

serpens

Thanks, mia!

I was surprised to read at that link that "having too many credit cards compared to your overall credit mix may also be a risk factor and could negatively impact your credit scores." This contradicts an assertion I have seen on FlyerTalk that there is no reason to cancel a card that has no annual fee.

tods27

This seems as good a place to post my recent experience as any. I applied for a CSR a month ago. Before applying, I called and asked for a reduction in credit limit on my CFU. In my mind, I was making space for them to approve the new card. The CSR was pending and they called to verify my income, then approved the card. I got a letter a couple weeks later that said I was approved (already had the card in hand) and that they had adjusted my two other cards (CFU and Marriott Rewards Plus). They basically took the CSR credit limit from the Marriott card and also showed my requested decrease on my CFU card. The lesson I took from this is not to reduce the limit prior to applying for a new card, but instead let them make the determination where to re-allocate the credit limit. I still have plenty of credit, but, in the end, I am down the amount of the requested decrease.