A while back I (technically, my wife) got a Banana Republic credit card, one of the many in Synchrony’s retail portfolio, in the hope that I’d one day get a really sweet promotion.
That day finally came, and the BR card is now our daily spender through the end of the year. The problem, though, was that the card had a paltry $1,400 credit limit. Our household has a few Synchrony cards and they all have credit limits within spitting distance of $1,000.
I therefore had no idea what to expect when Mrs. PFD called up to ask for a credit line increase. Will they be generous or stingy? Is the process quick, or is it long and drawn out? There isn’t a ton of info out there outside of people who are in the process of repairing their credit, so I thought I’d pass along our experience in case anybody else was wondering.
And our experience was that it was quick and painless. They essentially asked our income, asked how much of a credit line we wanted, and boom! Done. We asked for six grand and they gave it to us, which left me thinking I should have asked for more. Live and learn.
Some of you may be wondering: hard pull or soft pull? My lazy answer is that I don’t know and don’t care too much. I’ve never tracked my hard/soft pulls that religiously since I don’t go all-out in maximizing credit cards to the degree that some others do. Between my full-time job, my part-time blog, and my family I don’t have as much time and energy to do everything I’d like. For what it’s worth, Doctor of Credit says that Synchrony (formerly known as GE) is usually a soft pull, although that article is a bit old.
Anybody else who has data points to contribute regarding a Synchrony CLI, feel free to chime in below.
Synchrony, formerly GE, sometimes will grant substantial increases. So far every CLI has been based off of a SP during their regular review.
There’s always the risk of being considered having too much credit available, so just because they might grant a higher doesn’t mean it should be taken.
Do you happen to know of a way to monetize the Banana Republic rewards credit? I know gift cards are not eligible to purchase with rewards, but is there some way around this?
I do not, we’ve always used the rewards for clothes. Maybe check with Phil at MilesAbound to see if he knows? Though I think he just bought a ton of clothing with his rewards.
As someone that churns airline, elite and hotel cards I would suggest that you move away from store branded cards as they somewhat hurt your overall FICO scores. That is unless you really really value some odd coupons or promos (which it sounds like you do). I would suggest the Chase Sapphire Preferred (if your credit is excellent) or Citi Thank You Premier.
Is that really true? I’m not saying it’s not, and it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a negative correlation between retail card usage and creditworthiness…but do you have a source on that?
Even if does, my file’s sufficiently fat that it’s not going to hurt me enough to affect anything.
Just requested a CLI from $1.7k to $6k. Opened card in June. I was declined but they offered to increase to $2.7k. Better than nothing. They never asked for approval for a hard pull so I’m assuming soft.
My understanding is that store credit cards actually improve your credit score as it’s considered a different type of credit from say banks. Just the same as it’s beneficial to show that you can manage a mortgage, car loan and bank cards this is just another way to add to the diversity of your credit.