Nov 19 2008

Sudden Credit Limit Increase and APR Decrease

Posted by Simon Zhen in Credit Cards, Debt
3 Comment

Yesterday, I received an email confirmation that my statement was ready. And, as I usually do I pay off my balance immediately.

Citicards has a great web account interface that actually shows all the details of your account such as the balance, due dates, statement dates, credit line information, APR and cashback balance.

About 3 months ago, I requested a credit limit increase and it was approved, increasing my total credit line from $3,000 to $4,000. Now, it is at $5000. Also, my initial APR was at 12.99%. After the recent rate cut it went down to 12.49%. Now it is at 11.99%.

What is up with that? Without a doubt, these changes are not bad things for me, but it does reveal something about Citigroup. It is trying to make us spend. Shouldn’t the recent economic turmoil tell them that the nation needs to stop encouraging the borrowing of money?

It is the general consensus that credit limit increases are often available every 6 months but I received two increases in a 10-month period. And, unless I used the card very little, it is rare that they’d reduced my APR.

Or… maybe I’m just a really good customer?

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3 Comments on this post

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Student Scrooge said:

Citibank has always been very generous to me on both of my two cards in terms of credit line increases — I just got a nice $1,000 bump on my Citi mtvU card.

What does all of this reveal about Citibank? I don’t know. You’re probably right, on some level they want us to spend more. But at the same time… there are all these news reports these days about credit issuers reigning in credit limits to try to cut back on defaults. Seems like things are going all over the place.

November 20th, 2008 at 2:10 am
lulugal11 said:

I have a citi card as well and I love it. My card gives me cash back and like you said the interface is super easy to use. They give me automatic increases so I don’t even bother to do the requests.

I am waiting on an interest rate reduction now…but they gave me a great balance transfer offer that is saving me TONS in interest from another card.

November 20th, 2008 at 9:44 am
bartolomo said:

I like my citi card. They will increase limits very easily. Paying the balance in full every month is the key to controlling one’s credit and debt.

November 21st, 2008 at 5:13 pm