New CC - how to increase credit limit

[janegold]

We've got a fairly high balance on one of our cards leftover from some big purchases, and want to balance transfer to a 0% APR card to help pay it down.  I just applied for one that was recommended on Nerd Wallet. I was approved instantly but only with a $4000 limit, which isn't super helpful for our purposes - I need more like $20k.  Annual income is >$500k so not sure what, if anything, goes into determining limits.

What are the chances they will increase it if I ask?  (I would just call now but they don't give you a customer service # until the card arrives in the mail.)  ETA - we've asked for credit increases many times on our existing cards for the purpose of increasing our debt to credit ratio, but specifically wondering here whether a bank is likely to grant an increase to a brand new cardholders.

Or, does anyone have recommendations for how I can apply for a new card that will have a higher introductory limit?  It's been ages since I opened a new card so is a super low starting limit just standard?

[jwright]

I am not an expert but on two different cards I've just called and asked for a limit increase and gotten one. The cards want your business. I don't know if that would affect your rate or not.

[wanderingback]

I’ve just called or requested online. I’m not sure there is any other way to ask/get an increase.

[ellipses84]

I’ve never had much luck with cards raising limits significantly particularly when requesting online. You should try it, but call and try to talk to a human. Say that you got the card for a specific purpose and need X amount. Some cards are just a lot more conservative than others with their limits. Like, I think Capital one is pretty conservative, Chase is somewhere in the middle and Citibank and some airline/ store credit cards with ridiculous interest rates are pretty liberal about it IME. If you have a good credit score it should be fine but if you don’t have a lot of credit the other debt may be negatively impacting your debt to available credit ratio.

[janegold]

Sept 25, 2024 11:32:10 GMT -5 ellipses84 said:

I’ve never had much luck with cards raising limits significantly particularly when requesting online. You should try it, but call and try to talk to a human. Say that you got the card for a specific purpose and need X amount. Some cards are just a lot more conservative than others with their limits. Like, I think Capital one is pretty conservative, Chase is somewhere in the middle and Citibank and some airline/ store credit cards with ridiculous interest rates are pretty liberal about it IME. If you have a good credit score it should be fine but if you don’t have a lot of credit the other debt may be negatively impacting your debt to available credit ratio.

Thanks, this is super helpful. This one was a Wells Fargo and I went with it because they have an introductory 0% APR for 21 months where most other cards are at 15ish months.  But if they won't increase, maybe I'll look to see if Citibank is running any 0% offers.

[purplepenguin7]

This was a few years ago but I was once able to get my limit increased on a new card just by calling. Similar to you I had opened the new card for a balance transfer (a card they advertised at being great for balance transfers) and they gave me some bizarre 1k limit or something. A quick phone call and I went from 1k to 20k. Their explanation was when you open a card online they do a “quick” credit check and give everyone a low balance to start. Didn’t make much sense to me but it was quick and painless to fix.

[midwestmama]

Agree regarding Citibank. We used to have a card with them, and they would increase our credit limit almost every year, even though we didn't ask them to do it. A few times I actually called and asked them to reduce the credit limit because I didn't want such a high limit available (mostly in case of fraud), lol. We have a Capital One card and a Chase card now (for a few years), and I don't think they've ever automatically increased our limit. (I requested an increase on our Chase card once when we booked our Europe trip.) Agree with others on just calling customer service to talk to a person about a credit limit increase. I don't have any experience with Wells Fargo, though, so no advice to share.

[simpsongal]

Make sure to check if they have a balance transfer fee - I don't think I ever found a card that didn't charge a fee to balance transfer. Agree re Wells Fargo, they were annoyingly low when I opened their card a year or so ago. Amex has been pretty liberal w/CC amounts.

Credit utilization and available credit can be considered a pretty big ding on your credit, so that may be holding you back. By the end of our renovation my credit had dropped like 70-80 points. It's bouncing back now that we're paying the debt down.

[janegold]

My credit score is almost 800 so that's not it. Hopefully Wells Fargo will agree to a big increase when I get my card and can call them; otherwise I'll look into Citibank.

There is a balance transfer fee but it will be very worth it if we can actually transfer the entirety of our balance.