How to Get a Credit Limit Increase - Rules Every Card Issuer 2024

Hey credit warriors, welcome to the show and in this video we are going to go through how to get a credit limit increase and the rules for each major credit card issuer in the US. We're also going to tell you whether they do a soft credit pull or a hard credit pull on your credit report and if you don't know a hard credit pull will drop your credit score by a few points so a soft credit pull is more desirable. Some of this information has changed since other videos in the last few years especially banks policies around credit pulls with more of them now allowing a soft pull so consider this up-to-date information as of the beginning of 2024 for personal i.e. non-business credit cards from each issuer. All right let's get into it first up American Express with Amex they don't do a hard pull for credit limit increases in fact once you already have an Amex card they often don't even do a hard pull when you open another card. Amex does frequent soft pulls on the Experian credit bureau so they are still monitoring your credit score. You can request an increase by calling the number on the back of the card but you can also do it online. Here's how to navigate to the menus in the version of the website that is current at the end of 2023 and I'm guessing into early 2024. Click account services then go to payment and credit options then request credit limit increase. Now with Amex you must wait at least 60 days from opening your card until you request and you can actually request the exact amount that you want to increase to. You can normally 3x your starting credit limit as long as your account is in good standing and your starting limit isn't too high so if you have a $5,000 limit you can probably increase it up to $15,000. If the increase would take you over $25,000 you normally will be denied because limits over that amount require manual underwriting so you could phone up and you may need to go through some additional steps like filling out a form so that Amex can get a transcript of your tax return to verify your income and that's if you really want it. Personally I don't see a need for a credit limit over $25,000 on a non-business credit card. We have a full video on American Express credit limit increases where we successfully test it and go through all the steps and also all the rules. There are a few more rules that we didn't mention. The video looks like this. I will put it on the end card of this video so that you can check it out and Amex is kind of unique compared to other ones since the rules with Amex are very clear. Let's now move on. Chase. Chase used to do a hard pull on your credit report when you requested a credit limit increase but that has now changed. In March of 2023 Chase sent out an internal memo to bankers saying we are excited to announce that as of February 2023 we only perform soft credit inquiries for credit limit increase requests and soft inquiries don't affect clients credit scores. So yeah it's just a soft inquiry now and here is how to find the credit limit increase button in the current version of Chase's website. Once you've clicked on a card it will show up on the right hand side. This is the desktop version. I picked this one to show you because the limit is only $4,500 and as you can see I have quite a high balance on it. It'll be paid off in full this month but I could still use a higher limit on it so that my credit utilization doesn't go so high. So you hit more and then you select request credit limit increase and then you pick the card that you want. So I picked the one with the low limit and then they ask for an update of your income and your monthly mortgage or rent payment and then you can click submit. Now for me I actually didn't get an instant approval when I tried this out for this video probably because the card was near its limit and if you noticed on that screen recording just now I have a total of $47,500 in available credit across my four Chase cards. That's quite a lot of available credit. I have another $60,000 worth of available credit on my business cards with Chase too. Now most people seem to suggest that Chase aims to limit total available credit to half of your reported income. Data points on Reddit certainly seem to back that up. However I think this is probably true for incomes under $100,000 but as you get higher up I think they are going to be more wary of providing sky-high limits on personal cards. I mean if someone earns $1 million a year Chase probably won't let you have $500,000 in credit limits on personal credit cards. That's very risky for them considering credit cards are unsecured debt. Anyway for credit limit increases with Chase it is recommended to wait six months from card opening. That is a guideline you're going to see with a lot of these banks. Also they will automatically increase your credit limit so you can just wait for an increase instead of requesting one if it isn't urgent. All right let's move on. But first if you need a way to keep track of all your credit cards in one place the sponsor of today's video Max Rewards is a great choice. They've just come out with version 3 of the app and it is a great upgrade. The app gives you info on all your credit cards from different banks in one place. You'll be able to see your balances, your credit utilization on each card and your reward balances all in one app. The app will recommend which card to use for the maximum rate of rewards in each category and you can set the value of rewards points yourself for maximum accuracy. A new feature in version 3 is having trackers for all of your coupon book style Amex cards with credits so you can see how much you've used on each credit before the end of the year or the end of the quarter. It'll let you know how many days you have left until the credit resets. Also if you have the gold version of Max Rewards it still activates all of your Amex offers for you so that you will never miss a deal. When you activate all your offers new ones appear in your account and Max Rewards will activate them too saving you even more money. And if you want a free month of Max Rewards gold you can get that with my link below or just download it with the link and check out the free features. Okay so let's now talk about Citi. With Citi you may have a hard pull on your credit report or it might be a soft pull but the good thing is with Citi they tell you if it's going to be a hard pull when you try for an increase online. Now I don't have a Citi account so I can't demonstrate with a screen recording of my own but here's a screenshot from Miles to Memories and you see here it says we will not obtain a credit bureau report. If you see that language it's not a hard pull. Alternatively you may get this screen which you can clearly see says that they will obtain a credit report and thus you'll have a hard pull. From the Miles to Memory article it seems the online system will only increase your credit limit by a small amount. The author went from 12,500 to 15,000. So if you want a larger increase I guess you're going to need to phone the number on the back of your card. You will be able to ask if it's going to be a soft pull or a hard pull on the phone too. Citi does not have any published guidelines on how long to wait after getting your card but like with other issuers we recommend six months apart from Amex. All right let's move on. Bank of America. So with Bank of America it seems they changed their policy to soft pull only when you apply for a credit limit increase back in 2018. Doctor of Credit quotes a source familiar with changes at the company. This seems to be backed up by data points on Reddit. Like with other issuers it is recommended to not ask for a credit limit increase until you've had the card for six months and space out asking for an increase to once every six months. You can also do it online or over the phone. On the FICO forums there are people talking about seeing a credit limit increase button on their online account and some people see it in some of their accounts but not in others. Just be aware that this button does not mean you automatically qualify for an increase. It just means that their computer system thinks that you are qualified to apply. Not to actually get the increase but to apply. So you could still be denied even if you see that pop-up button on your account. Capital One. All right so with Capital One they also only do a soft pull now and you can request the increase online like this. Click the card that you want to increase on then click this I want to button and then click request credit line increase. Then you will get a form where you have to enter your income, employment, mortgage or rent payment and how much you intend to spend on the card and also why you want the increase. Capital One is really thorough about this and it seems they don't want to give you the increase unless you really have a good reason for it. Doctor of Credit reports that a lot of people struggle to actually receive an increase through this button. Last time I tried it I was refused although in my case I was hardly using my card. Apparently someone even complained to the Better Business Bureau about this and then got the increase they asked for. Strangely Doctor of Credit recommends instead of reporting it to the BBB you could just email the Capital One CEO Richard Fairbank and they even published his email right there on the site. Personally I don't see how that's going to work. I mean I'm sure the email is going to go straight to a trash folder unless there is a team managing his emails sending them to the relative departments or something. I don't know it's kind of strange. Anyway with Capital One they will automatically increase your credit limit from time to time as well but for me I have discovered that they are very hard to get an increase from if you don't use your card enough. Perhaps they don't want to expose themselves to extra risk. It's recommended to have six months worth of on-time payments and like with other banks you can only ask for an increase once every six months. U.S. Bank. Now U.S. Bank seems 50-50 on whether they do a hard pull or not according to data points on Reddit. Many people do seem to have luck doing it online with soft pulls like this guy. If you submit online it should be a soft pull. I've asked for one three times on my Cash Plus with three approvals and three soft pulls no hard pulls. But then other people have also said that they got a hard pull so that's not always going to be the case. U.S. Bank will only increase your credit limit once every six months and like with others you got to make sure you have six months worth of on-time payments. They will ask for your income and asset information. And then finally we have Barclays. Now this bank will do a hard pull when you ask for a credit limit increase. You can do it over the phone or on their website and you will get either an instant decision or a decision through the mail after 10 days. This is the only one on this list that 100% of the time will do a hard pull. And if you get denied you can try again after one month but remember it's going to be a hard pull each time. But you know with Barclays like with all the other banks if you just wait and let them increase your limit naturally over time it'll just be a soft pull. Keeping credit utilization low but actually using your cards every month will give you the best chance of automatic credit limit increases too. There's actually this chart by the Barclay Ring blog. I don't know what that is it doesn't seem to be online anymore but it shows the likelihood of a credit limit increase at different levels of credit utilization. So you can see here around 30% or so that is the most likelihood of a automatic credit limit increase. Once you get up to 80 or 90% it seems very likely they'll do the opposite and lower your credit limit. You're basically in the danger zone at that level. Alright guys that is the video for today. Do subscribe to the channel for more personal finance and credit card tips and tricks. Don't forget to get a free month of max rewards gold with my link below. I'll also put a link to my in-depth video on Amex credit limit increases on screen now. You can check that out if you're interested. Thanks so much for watching we'll see you next time. Bye bye.