I've had good success consolidating credit lines when I closed a credit account at Chase.

I've not had luck with Citi in the past. Has that changed? Have others been able to consolidate credit with Citi?

I recently opened a new account with Citibank (Thank You Preferred 5TYP / $ for first 6 months) and they only gave me a $11,700 limit. My other Citibank card (Dividend) has a $25,000 limit.

I asked if I could shift the credit limits around but the rep said that it was not possible.

I was told by a Chase rep that they require hard pulls for almost all CLI. However, she wouldn't tell me the exception to that... :/ I assume they do routine checks and either just give it to you.

With my Citi Forward card, had a $1200 limit to start with (limited history) and after having it for about 10 months, called them, and the rep told me they check their internal database first to see if you're eligible for a CLI. She said most of the time, if you've been a good customer, they'll give it to you right there. Got bumped to 2k right there with no credit pulls.

In any case, they have to get your explicit permission before they pull your history, so no harm in walking through it on the phone and seeing if something can be done.

I'm not positive on this. If you have an activve account with them, they have a permissive purpose to pull your credit at their will.

As a matter of policy, perhaps they ask.

Unless there's some special rule for extension of additional credt I'm aware of.

So for Citi, I tried to get them to consolidate before I cancelled and the reps all said "we can't do that any more". And maybe even a year ago, they had a way to request a CLI on their website that was automatic, but now that form says they will pull credit reports, so maybe they have changed that policy as well.

So I guess it's call citi, see if any way they will grant it without a hard pull, and cross my fingers that Chase quickly realizes I am spending and paying off $20K a month on a $6K credit limit card and ups the limit on their own.

If I apply for another chase card (I may as well get the United bonus), can I ask for a CLI at the same time so that they only pull once?

Thanks for all the input

In my past experiences with Citi the last 6 months, I had them increase my credit limit on two different cards with no credit pull. They can do a "soft pull" and a "hard pull." Call them up and request to do a "soft pull".

I 'think' with Citi the procedure is to call the ordinary CS rep and ask. If the front line CS rep has the authority to instantly grant the request it is a soft pull because it is already preauthorized in their system. If the front line CS rep says they will have to submit it to the credit department or someone else, tell them never mind and cancel the request because it would be a hard.

Also I 'think' $2,000 is the maximum amount of that kind of increase and alas, don't count on a CS rep to know the difference between a soft pull and a hard pull despite what they may tell you.

No guarantees on that info. That's just what has worked for me.

I personally have never had any luck with Chase without a hard but you can reallocate with Chase so opening new cards for bonuses and then reallocating lines is a better option for increasing limits with Chase.

If you have an active account, cc companies can do an account review at any time. The account review is known as a promotional inquiry or soft pull, and the company has permissible purpose to look at your credit since you have an existing relationship with them, and you agreed to the terms and conditions of the cardmember agreement.

If you are asking for an extension of credit, which can be a new product or an increase on an existing product, you must consent to your credit report being pulled. That consent results in a hard pull and an inquiry posted to your report.

It is also true that the company can use the data it has collected in the soft pull to make a proactive decision to raise your line without you asking for it and provide that information to you in a statement for instance.

Hope that helps

I've found that it depends on the amount and how comfortable the credit card company is with your account.

Once with Discover I had a $1500 limit asked for it to be raised and they said they could do $3000 but if I want more than that, they had to do a new credit pull.

In my experience with BoA, Discover and Paypal, the analyst asked for my information, and asked me for the limit that I wanted/hoped to get.
Then they run the app, and would tell me whether or not I got the CLI.
This did NOT do a hard pull.

If the system did not approve the CLI, it would warn the analyst (who in-turn warned me) that continuing on would mean a hard pull, and it's at that point, that I would say thanks and politely hang up.

I got a hard pull for a credit limit increase but without approval. It was with citibank, I was trying to see if i could request a credit limit increase without a hard pull. One customer representative said that they would ask for my approval before they went ahead with it. I was than transferred to an account specialist in another department who right away put me on hold, next thing i know, i got a hard pull for cli !

There was no communication between the two departments, the account specialist supposedly didn't know hear from the other customer rep that I was trying not to get a hard pull.

basically, what can i do right now? They pulled from equifax and I called equifax that told me that the bank would have to call another number to dispute the hard pull.

But most importantly, How many points will my credit score drop from a credit limit increase hard pull ?????

Does the decrease in points from my credit score depend on how much I requested for a credit limit increase ?

My credit score with equifax is around 780 , AAoA is 3 years, utilization is 7% .

Nothing.

disputing it won't work ? What if the bank agrees to assist me in making the dispute ? need a better answer..

Most important, How many points will my credit score drop from a credit limit increase hard pull ?

You can ask Citi to "unreport" the hard pull, but you're fighting an uphill battle. In terms of your score, it probably drops you a few points and that effect will go away in <=6 months.

can you tell me how many points on average it drops from a hard pull for cli ?

does the amount of points dropped depend on the amount increase for the cli ?

I'm thinking of applying for some new cards soon so was worried of how much it will affect my credit score.