Citi is pretty good in CLI. I have 25k on a single citi card.
I used it to purchase a car (paid in full) and when the statement came, I paid off everything.
Great points earned there.

summitsix said:, but hates alot of new accounts. Best way is to take the hard inq to get lines over 20K and in amounts of 9K per hard inq.
BofA: A no-brainer. Offer up a BT and you'll grow CL's very rapidly. CLI link on website only offers paltry increases. Altough, even with non use, you can get 3-5K every 6-9 months without a hard pull.


you mean accept a BT offer and keep it out?

I have several cards with $20k credit limits. The key is that some credit issuers automatically grant you a credit line equal to your current highest limit.

What I did:
Applied for ATT Universal card, got approved at about $5k.
Opened second ATT card (5% back offer), started around $7k.

I then used the online "credit limit request" about every 3 months, which eventually got me to about $9k and $10k.

I then combined the credit limits, and so I had once card with a limit about $19k.

Then I started applying for other cards. Each card *matched* my highest credit limit. I got an AMEX, then a Bank One card, then an MBNA card, all stared at around $20k.

So this seems, to me, a good way to get very high CLs very quickly.

Storme said:Why would Citi give you an automatic CLI if you have shown that you don't go above 1k in spending?

That makes no sense.

Actually I hardly ever utilize close to 100% of my Citi CL and they've just increased it.

SUB said:I'm in the same situation. I recently applied for the Citi Rewards card and they gave me $500 CL (LOL). They said it's because I already have another cc with them (although I hadn't opened it with Citi originally, but thru a bank that they acquired since), with a much higher CL - $15kSame happened to me, except then I applied for a third card and they mysteriously gave me $2000, so then I merged it with the $500 card for now and will eventually merge that with the first card and apply for some more.

clapthatfool said:Also, I just merged these two cards yesterday. When should I start asking for CL increases? In 3 - 6 months?3 months since you've had the accounts open longer than 6 months already.

FWIW In advance, I expect most posters to this thread are wise enough so this won't this happen to them and many are using cli to great benefit.

This is partial quote from cnn/money today (see third paragraph):

Credit lines can tighten, too
More and more lenders will reel in your credit line if they see something on your credit record that makes them nervous. Pay late on your card bill or with another creditor, bounce a check or take on a big loan and don't be surprised if your credit card's roomy credit line gets a lot less roomy in a hurry.

"Larger, more sophisticated issuers are very, very aggressively marketing credit lines both upwards and downwards," Raza says.

Even card customers that pay off their card balances each month may want to think twice about accepting every credit line increase that comes their way. The reason?

Lenders view all open credit lines as potential debt. Too much unused credit may affect your ability to qualify for a home or a car loan.

"Lenders are cash-flow bankers," says Paul Richard, executive director of the Institute of Consumer Financial Education in San Diego. "And no lender is going to make you a deal when you have all that credit available and not consider what you might do with it."

So folks with six or more credit cards and no debt may want to trim back their credit lines before applying for a home or car loan. Cutting back your credit lines won't boost your credit score, but it may make a lender feel more comfortable about approving you for the big secured loan that you really want." good luck
( commentators below think this last paragraph is poor advice)

cnn/money wrote: Lenders view all open credit lines as potential debt. Too much unused credit may affect your ability to qualify for a home or a car loan.

Morons

cnn/money wrote: So folks with six or more credit cards and no debt may want to trim back their credit lines before applying for a home or car loan. Cutting back your credit lines won't boost your credit score, but it may make a lender feel more comfortable about approving you for the big secured loan that you really want."

I hope no one does this. While you can always ask lenders to decrease your CLs and re-apply, getting them restored may not be so easy. Anyway, I would just go look for a home or car loan elsewhere.

magnate said:bank of america, keep on asking online, no hard is pulled. (went over time from 5k to 15k)

AMEX, consolidate lines online, then try for an increase on the new smaller line.

citi, keep hitting the online CLI button. (if it comes up, don't fill in the form. (citi from 750>1500>2250>2550>3250>4500)

This has worked well for me every 3 months or so.

dlr3 said:SIS started a thread some time ago re: Highest CL per CC - what I would like to do with this thread is sort of spin-off from that topic to have an easy reference for strategies used to get CLI on various cards – WITHOUT a hard pull. Why is this useful? Raised limits = lower utilization = higher FICO.

If we can share info on how some of our more significant increases have been obtained and what we may have been told during the process by CSR or “R” then maybe we can avoid the CLI process headaches.

Discover

Initial limit : 5k
Final limit : 17.5k
Strategy : periodically calling - every 3 months at first - then every 6 until I got to 12,500… Then one big bump from 12,500 to 17,500 – been trying to get a bump from 17.5k to 20k for the past 6 months now… told by CSR that anything more than 15k they will want a hard pull – regardless. If that’s true, then I am stuck forever at 17.5k with Discover

Citi Div Platinum

Initial CL : 6.8k
Final CL : 6.8k
Strategy : Still in first 6 months – waiting to see if I get auto CL button on the Citi Cards website at month 6 or just the good ol’ auto CL with no input from me at all that I hear Citi is generous about doing. Have kept my utilization around 10%. Will update at month 6.


CITI had the auto increase (Every 6 month) button for my account but after I hit 17k in limit, it is gone now (almost 1 yr) My other CLs with CITI add upto another 10k. So there is a hard limit