I wrote last week about how pitiful my BoA credit limit was. Before this post, this was my CL:
- PR Elite card – $10K
- TR – $2.5K
- Unl Cash – $3K
- Merrill $2K (this card once had $30K before I stupidly dropped it to $2K)
- Biz card A – $12.5K
- Biz card B – $12.5K
Total personal limit is about $15.5K and business limit is $25K so total relatioinship CL of $40K.
Go back two years, I had an Alaska card that had $30K and the Merrill had $30K for a total relatioinshp CL of $60K and that’s not counting the other cards. And I’ve increased my assets with them since then, so it was weird why my current CL is less than my previous CL.
Anyway, I called them up yesterday to increase my CL (I can’t do this online btw – the links don’t show up.) I tried to increase the TR CL first; the first line rep asked me to how much. I told her $50K; she kind of gasped but I said, ‘I mean, they can counter with a lower amount right?’ and she said yes. After asking me for my salary and housing payment, she put me on a brief hold. She came back and said they countered with a $12.5K CL for the TR, which I accepted. I then asked for an increase on the UNL Cash. This time, I asked to speak to the next level analyst, which she then forwarded me to.
I had a good conversation with the next level analyst. I told her about the $30K on Merrill and she even brought up the Alaska card $30K before I had closed. Oh I had also left out that last month, I moved a lot of assets around to Merrill which now had a sizable 6 digit balance. I told the analyst why it was odd that I had a lower total CL than 2 years ago when I have more assets now than before. She told me it was a lot of factors blah blah blah. Anyway, she told me she could do $15K on the Unl Cash. I then asked if we could bump up the new PR Elite card too and she said she could first try to bump up the UNL Cash even more with a reconsideration of the CL counter. I said sure, let’s do it. Then she said she’d have to call me back on the PR Elite card.
At the end, she asked me why I dropped the cl on the AS card and ML card. I told her because I didn’t want the credit to be on those cards and that I thought the CL would move over to newly applied cards. She of course told me, “That’s a good reason, but we can transfer CLs between cards.” which of course I know NOW but it’s too late. Anyway, I hammered on her how much assets I have in Merrill now and so we’ll see what happens.
The lesson learned here is that if you can’t request a cl increase online, call them up and just go down each card. I suggest you have added and marinated money to your Merrill account for a few months.
Have 2 BoA cards and will be closing both of them in a month or so. Only for the mere fact that when they offer a percent off reward and you use it they take forever to credit your account. Sometimes you have to call them and then they do anything still not to credit your account.