I know some here said they were not raising credit limits lately. I had not had any offers. However, I used one of their "checks" to buy my son a used car a couple of months ago. It was convenient at the time and I planned to do a BT within a month and pay it off because of the high interest rate. A few weeks ago I checked my balance on-line and noticed they gave me a 1000 increase and never mentioned it nor charged for it. I have another account with them that has had a 0 balance for several months. They recently sent me some more checks to be used on either account. I did not use them but I called them on the 0 balance card and asked if they would give me an increase comparable to the amount of the check. My limit on this account was 4550 and the check was for 3000. I said I would like to keep my usage at about 50% so an increase would help. They said no. I did not use the check, however when I checked the account on-line today, I see they gave me a 1000 increase!
Congratulation. Perhaps they just don't want to give out more CL to people who have had major blemishes like a BK or who have low credit scores. The other factor is they make a ton of money of those checks so you profitability score went was up. My last increase with Providian was last October. I have never paid them any interest and I have only run the card up to about $1,000.
You're probably right about the profitability thing. As I said, I intended to pay it off right away but being the procrastinator that I am, and I am indeed, it's still not paid off. I applied for the Discover card and included a BT to pay off the Providian account, but I don't think I was approved. I'll know in a few days.
Some things I've learned about Providian: The $99 to increase your limit is a total gimmick. I've never paid the money and they've continued to raise my limit You can avoid the finance charge with them by paying your balance to zero before your statement cycles. Even though there is no grace period, they evidently have a bug in their software In my experience, if you pay a lot more then the minimum due, they will give you increases. I just paid my balance down from $3,200 to zero and they bumped my limit from $3,900 to $6,900 two days later.
As far as the grace period (float time), it depend on the account they offer you. They offered my a account with zero grace period once every month for about a year, then finally one day I got an offer for about $3,000 CL, 25 day grace period, no application fee, and no annual fee at 23.99%. They are a sub prime slime lender, but they do offer normal accounts.
