My Credit Card Limits

So Claire at Tired But Happy published a post titled “Credit Card Limits”. She asked us to list our credit limits and explain how we established them. Just found this on Single Ma’s Fabulous Financials. Since I have been obsecenely obcessed with my Credit Score lately, I thought this was a great excercise.

With my goal this year of boosting my credit score by 50 points, the wisdom Single Ma gave to the PF blogsphere is very timely. Particularly in the consolidation and simplification process, it gives great advice on “How to Close Credit Cards without impacting your Credit Score.”

Here’s the 6 open accounts I’m working with:

1 - American Express Starwood Preferred: $13,800
1 point for every dollar spent redeemable 1 for 1 with every single airline mileage program out there. The credit limit was originally somewhere around $3000 back when I had the Student American Express in college. This is one of my oldest cards, but with American Express, it doesn’t really matter since they count the date you first became a member. Don’t really use this card at all though since I like to have the big limit sitting empty.

2 - Citibank Dividend (Cash Rewards):  $8,000
Haven’t used this card because I put $6000 in 0% balance transfer money when I applied for it back in August last year. 0% expires next month though, and so as soon as I pay it off, I will probably apply the available credit to my Citibank Diamond and cancel it. This will keep up my total available credit and actually bump up my average credit history.

3 - Citibank Diamond Rewards: $13,800
This is my main balance transfer card and my oldest credit card. Great rewards program but I never use it since it’s the balance transfer card. Everything on it is 5% APR or less for the life of the balance. The credit limit will probably go up to $21,800 when I combine the Dividend Rewards card.

4 - American Express Rewards Plus Gold: $No Limit
This is the card I use everyday. It comes with a $140 annual fee, but that is for 5 additional cards too. I have secondaries assigned to my 2 best friends and my dad for convienience in purchasing things for me. I have a boatload of Membership rewards points as a result of it.

5 - Dell Preferred Credit: $4,000
Got this last year when I bought my new PC because it had 18 months interest free financing. As far as I am concerned, this is Toy Credit, and it’s been more of a hassle than a benefit of the 18 months. As soon as I pay off the remaining $500 I’m going to cancel it - reducing my total available credit but also bumping up my average length of credit history.

6 - American Express Costco Business True Earnings (NEW): $3,000
This is the card I was just approved on but have yet to receive in the mail. They have a great deal of 5% rebate at gas stations, 3% on dining out, 2% on Travel, and 1% on everything else. This is toy credit as far as I’m concerned, but if I consolidate my Starwood Amex into this it will make for a pretty solid product (and limit). I love Costco especially since I used to work for them and I know their business model. They basically rebate a portion of their profits back to their customers in the form of lower prices, rates, etc. I have a feeling this will start becoming my primary everyday card.

TOTAL AVAILABLE CREDIT: $28,800

Not the $168,000 that Single Ma is working with, but a pretty solid number for someone in her mid twenties. However, I am going to take her advice and periodically start asking for credit line increases that only require soft pulls.