Hey guys, I just applied for a Bank of America card and I was declined for it. I sent them an appeal yesterday through PlanetFeedback and I think that I have a good chance of getting the card. While I wait on that appeal I'd like to start looking into some other options for getting more credit. Would it make sense for me to try to increase the credit limits of some of my existing cards while I wait for the Bank of America appeal to be decided? I would only apply for increases with the cards that do soft or no inquiries for credit limit increases. One of the reasons Bank of America listed for denying me credit was "number of revolving accounts with high utilization". I'm not sure if increasing the credit limit of a couple of my cards would make giving me credit look more or less appealing to Bank of America. I'm also concerned that some of the companies that I request credit limit increases from might say that they are going to do a soft inquiry, then do a hard one, which seems like it would look horrible to Band of America right now. Any advice on how to handle this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, cg2333
Although you may be able to get a CL increase with only soft inquiries, so many CSRs know so little about the credit reporting system, you can't count on what they say. What is your total available credit, total outstanding balances, and how old are your oldest accounts? How many new accounts, and how many recent hard inquiries within, say, the last year? Also, what negatives show on your reports? If you know them, what are your FICO scores? Those are what any potential lender, including BofA, will be looking at, either directly, or indirectly thru your scores.
