when to ask for an increased credit limit

Quote from Dr. J : what I hate is they ask you for "how much more do you want", then run the credit, etc, and give you a # in return. they should just determine what they're willing to give you and leave it at that.

Yeah that is kind of stupid, but I think it serves an ulterior purpose. They aren't asking you how much more credit you want because they care, or want to give that amount to you - they are asking because they want to know how much you need, and use that in the calculation of your credit worthiness/risk.

It's just a variable in some overly complex formula designed to calculate your credit limit. Generally, the less you ask for, the more you get.

We have tons of cards now, most with high limits that we never use, and everything paid in full each month. I had one card from a very long time ago with some horrible limit. I think it was like $500. I had it for 12ish years, from back when I was in college. Perfect history, etc., but they never raised the limit automatically, and it didn't have any rewards, so I never even cared about it enough to ask. I never even used it anymore, it just sat in my car as an "emergency card" if I lost my wallet or something like that. I just kept it since it had no annual fee and was an old account. Long story short, I finally said screw it - I'm canceling the card. So I call them up, and they ask why. I said because I don't have enough of a limit to even buy anything. I have 5 other cards with $10-$30k limits, but this one I've had for over a dozen years has a $500 limit - it's ridiculous. They asked me how much of an increase would I need to keep it. I told them I honestly didn't care, because the lack of rewards would make me not want to use it very often, how about raising it to at least a thousand. She puts me on hold, comes back about 2 mins later, and said it was raised to $10,000. WTF? Why wouldn't they have done that automatically years ago?

When to ask for an increased credit limit? When you don't need it.

I have a Chase Freedom card as well, and I got a hard inquiry on my report when I asked for a limit increase.

The OP obviously resolved this already, but I figured I'd add: Generally speaking, creditors only care if you have hard inquiries within 30 or 60 days (rarely 90). If you're not planning on getting any loans within a few months, it shouldn't matter much.

Quote from Desidero : I have a Chase Freedom card as well, and I got a hard inquiry on my report when I asked for a limit increase. The OP obviously resolved this already, but I figured I'd add: Generally speaking, creditors only care if you have hard inquiries within 30 or 60 days (rarely 90). If you're not planning on getting any loans within a few months, it shouldn't matter much.

I have a chase freedom also and jack ass chase has me at like 14% percent

Chase is stupid. I'm 23 making 40k and I have a 2k limit. I requested an increase, they said no, 2 months later, they increase more than i asked for just on a whim(sent me a letter)

I'm not sure why they do this, but I don't like it.