1. Keep your credit score high.
This is obvious advice, but a good credit score is the
single most important factor in maintaining a high credit
limit. If other forces are outside your control, this one
is in your hands. Paying your bills on time and keeping
your debt balances low is a key to maintaining a high
credit rating. Single late payments might have been forgiven
in the past, but no longer. — Emily Peters, personal
finance expert for Credit.com
2. Keep your cards.
Don’t close your accounts. Your FICO score is largely
based on the ratio of total balances versus total available
credit. Closing one card will lower your available credit
making your balance to limit ratio higher. Therefore it’s
very likely your FICO score will drop and your othercards may lower your limit.
— Marc Chase, founder of My Credit Group
3. Use your cards.
Keep your cards active. If you’re not using your card,
the company isn’t making any money off your account.
Banks are lowering limits and closing accounts
that are underutilized. — Schwark Satyvolu, co-founder
of BillShrink.com
4. Know your limits.
Find out what your limits are. Credit-card providers are
not obligated to give you warning before changing your
account. Your limit may have been adjusted without
your knowledge. Most cards allow you to monitor and
track your balance online and set alerts if the situation
changes. — Ken Lin, CEO of Credit Karma
5. Carry a balance.
It sounds like bad financial advice to pay interest if
you don’t have to, but issuers don’t make money unless
you’re carrying a balance month to month. In the current
situation, it might make sense to carry a larger balance
to stay on the provider’s good side. In typical eras,
good practice is to keep balances under 30 percent to
40 percent of available credit to maintain a good FICO
score, but to stay in the good graces of the credit-card
companies, a user would be well-advised to use more of
her credit. The higher balance may motivate the bank to
keep your limit high, which could outweigh any negative
impact on your FICO score. — Schwark Satyvolu
6. Pay enough.
While you want to be carrying the balance, you don’t
want to be paying the minimum. Most card providers
have established profiles for users who pay only the
minimum. Such a pattern establishes you as only slightly
more desirable than a user who pays late or misses
payments. — Steve Conover, The Credit Guru, and Schwark
Satyvolu, co-founder of BillShrink.com
7. Know your providers’ practices.
Most companies report to the credit bureaus only once
a month on a regular schedule. Knowing what day they
report your card activity can give you the flexibility to
maintain a high balance, which can make you a more
profitable customer for the provider and still pay down
your balance by the date the data is reported to the
credit bureaus. — Marc Chase
8. Get more credit.
If your credit score is still high, if you’re still employed
but worried you won’t be, or if you just want to have
more credit available, you need to act while you have the
chance. Ask your card providers for higher limits, and
apply for new cards. Each new credit application dents
your credit score, so try to stick with current providers;
but if you’re preparing for a long winter of unemployment,
use every resource and get a new card or two.
— Emily Peters and Schwark Satyvolu
9. Choose your cards.
Few people were aware until recently that card providers
were profiling your credit risk based on your spending
behavior, but American Express and others have
been doing it for years. If you have a card associated
with high-income membership, don’t use it at discount
retail stores. They will consider that a deviation from
their standard profile, and they may lower your limit.
Keeping an assortment of cards to use at different
vendors and stores can help avoid sending up red flags.
— Schwark Satyvolu
10. Don’t move balances.
Trying to move balances from one card to another won’t
improve your overall FICO score or your standing with
providers. Only move balances between cards if you
believe you can obtain more beneficial rates and understand
all the fine print that comes with balance transfers.
— Emily Peters
11. More than FICO.
Card providers weigh factors such as unemployment
payments when considering your credit. Before you
decide to apply for unemployment, consider whether
the amount of money you might receive from unemployment
outweighs the ding accepting it might have
on your access to credit. It also might be wise to take
on part-time work to keep money coming in and credit
limits high. — Schwark Satyvolu
12. Right-sized cards.
Ensure that you are using the right cards. Certain cards
have nice benefits but are not meant to carry significant
debt loads. You may not need the card that earns you
airline miles if you’re no longer traveling regularly for
work. Another card may offer no rewards but will allow
you to carry a larger balance. If you want to obtain new
cards, consider it early in your layoff or while you’re still
employed. — Schwark Satyvolu
13. Consider your rewards.
Specific rewards cards offer better value than cashback
cards. If you know you frequently require certain
products or services, such as hotel points, you will get
better value earning points toward that service than
applying cash-back rewards to that purchase. If your
needs are more general, rewards are wasted, and cash
back is a better option. Applying rewards will help
keep your spending down and preserve your balance.
— Schwark Satyvolu
14. Find off-card debt.
Your credit-card debt may impair your ability to get a
home-equity loan; by comparison, your home-equity line
will cause you fewer problems getting and keeping high
limits on a card. Lenders and card providers consider
home-equity and other lines of credit less risky than
credit-card debt, so seek avenues of debt besides your
card or use those lines of credit to help pay your creditcard
bills. — Schwark Satyvolu
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