Increasing One’s Credit Card Limit

Posted On: November 11, 2005

Author: The Great British Spender
Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2004 3:56 pm
Post subject: Increasing One’s Credit Card Limit

Due to a business disaster a few years ago I find myself without capital to take advantage of buy/sell opportunities I come across from time to time. I understand from the 3rd largest UK bank that my credit score is of the highest class so it is my intention to research increasing my various card limits to give myself more flexibility in the future.

Does anyone Stateside have any knowledge of how to do something like this,here in the UK I can only bow to your experience as we Brits seem to be somewhat in the dark about about activities of this kind.

The Great British Spender wrote:
buy/sell opportunities

By consistently paying off your bills on time every month. The only other way is to inherit the Queen’s gold.

By chance are you talking about business opportunities? Sounds like it, the way you put it…buy/sell…or is it real estate?

Then again, there’s always the lottery.

I am not sure how this works in UK, but in my humble opinion, you can do the following:

1. Apply for more credit cards.
2. Call up you existing credit card customer service and ask for raising the credit limit without doing a hard pull. If you have a long and good credit history, I believe the credit score will not be affected much even if they do a hard pull. This way, you may be able to get a lot higher credit limit.
3. Many times, you don’t even have to do the above. Just go to your account online and there ought to be a link somewhere that says: Credit limit increase request. If you have been a customer for more than 6 months, there ought to be an offer that would increase your limit by a modest amount (e.g. $500). You could also fill out an online form and ask for a specific amount, but this probably would result in a hard pull.
4. Use more and more of your cards more often.

Hope this helps. Please correct me if I am wrong, experts.

I agree with Maverick. I’ve gotten large CL increases by maxing out cards once in a while and paying them down quickly. Doing this makes the bank think you need more credit and are capable of repaying.

Never just pay minimums. That makes you look like you are overextended.