I opened a US Bank Cash+ on October 11 with a starting limit of $2,000. My credit score is around 750 from all three bureaus, and I have 14 credit cards totaling $205,000 in credit. Many of my card limits are over $10k, so I was disappointed with this limit, though I know US Bank is hard to please. I also opened a US Bank Smartly Checking and Silver Business Checking in September, hoping these accounts might help me get a better limit for the card. They waived the Smartly fees, and I just wanted another flexible 5% card on hand.
On October 28, I applied for a credit limit increase through the app, showing my total assets and income (I didn’t include my assets when I first applied). Today, October 30, I found out my limit was raised to $15,000, which is a 7.5 times increase! I was surprised to get an increase since the account is so new (I only made one charge so far), but I’m really happy I gave it a shot. I did get hit with a hard inquiry (Transunion, same as the original application) right after applying for the limit increase, which wasn’t made very clear. But now that I have a higher limit, I can keep my overall spending low.
I haven’t seen many success stories for limit increases from US Bank in the first 90 days, so I wanted to share my experience in case it helps someone else!
Congrats on your limit increase! It was worth the hard pull for such a big boost. In a year, that inquiry won’t affect your score, but you’ll keep your $15k limit. Mission accomplished.
I’ve heard that US Bank doesn’t usually give issues for limit increases early on if you’re okay with the hard pull. I took a hard pull on my Cash+ just days after it was approved before even getting the card because I wanted a higher starting limit.
@Josie
Exactly! I’ve been working with credit cards for a while and I don’t mind hard pulls. Besides my 15 personal cards, I also have 6 business cards, and I had to take a few hard pulls for those. It barely impacted my score, and the effect has faded over time.
I wasn’t aware that getting an increase like this while the account is still young was common. I read articles suggesting to wait 6 months, and I thought, ‘I wouldn’t have applied if I knew the limit would be so low for a while,’ but now that’s no longer a worry!
Pierce said: @Lenox
Just curious, why did you want the credit increase? It seems you already have a lot of credit…
$2k limit was just too low for the spending I wanted to put on the card without constantly cycling the limit, or would prevent me from using it altogether.
I’m thinking about asking for a credit limit increase for my 2-month-old Cash+ and Shopper Cash, so thanks for sharing about the hard pull. I might just wait for them to raise my limit automatically instead.
@Clovis
Hard pulls don’t have much impact on your score, and any effect fades over time, but if your limit isn’t restricting your spending, waiting might be okay. I had a $3k expense I wanted to put on the card for the sign-up bonus and 5% cash back, so the $2k limit was just too low haha. Most of my limit increases with other banks were either automatic or soft pulls - the only other hard pull I had was with Wells Fargo.
@Lenox
I already have like 7 inquiries in the past 3 months and I’m planning to wait 5 more months before applying for new cards, so I’d prefer to avoid new inquiries. I’m not really worried about my score haha.
What’s your 5/24 status? I was told I had too much recent credit when I tried to appeal my initial $10K limit with US Bank. They said to wait 6 months and try again. They confirmed CLI requests lead to a hard pull.
@OliviaGarcia
You can sometimes avoid the hard pull by freezing your credit report first. I did that and went from 2k to 4k. I wonder if I could have gotten more if my report had been unfrozen. I tried again with it frozen a month later and they denied me, using their TURD model. I didn’t bother unfreezing it since one of the reasons they gave was a recent limit increase. Oh well.
I received my Cash+ this month with a $6500 limit, which I think is the highest I’ve had at the start. I have three other cards, the oldest is over 5 years old. My income is a fraction of yours haha, so I’m fine with the limit. Just happy I got approved.
Page said:
A 7.5 times credit limit increase is impressive from any issuer. 7.5 times from US Bank within 30 days is even more impressive. Kudos to you.
Thanks! With other issuers, I’ve usually had to wait before getting a large increase like this.