Posts tagged: missing a payment

How To Raise The Limits Of Your Credit Cards

You have a credit card that you’ve paid off regularly, and you have maintained your debt pretty well ever since you got it. Your credit score is pretty good, and you do not want to do anything to make it go down. You’re thinking you could handle your debt just as well if you had a higher credit limit. But how do you go about raising your credit limit without damaging your credit score? Is a higher limit worth the decrease in your credit rating? Here are a few options you could consider when asking for a higher limit on your credit card.

Just don’t do it

One opinion is that you could avoid a limit increase altogether. Lenders periodically increase your limits for you anyway, if you have a good credit history and are making your payments on time. Why would you need a higher limit anyway when you are not sure you could keep up to the debt you might incur with such high spending possibilities? Really, if you do not absolutely need to have your limits raised, you probably shouldn’t even ask. That way your credit score won’t suffer and you run less of a risk of missing a payment and building up your debt. Increasing your credit limit is risky business…from the first time you apply for student credit cards until you finally have a financial awakening, you’re most likely building up high interest balances that will haunt you for years.

Take it on the chin

Some would think it best to just ask for the credit limit increase anyway, and take whatever consequences come your direction. This may not be too bad of a solution if you have a great credit score. But overall, if you have a good credit score, wouldn’t you want to keep it that way? There has to be another way to do this and not get penalized.

Ask for an account review

This form of inquiry is sort of like asking indirectly for higher credit limits. Lenders do account reviews periodically whether you request it or not. They check the accounts on your credit reports to basically check up on you. They look to see what kind of changes they should make to your account concerning things like interest rates and credit limits. So if you ask for an account review from your lender regarding your credit limit, it sort of pushes them along in raising your limits, if you’re worthy of an increase. This way, there is less of an effect on your credit score, and you get the larger range in which you wanted to spend.