Why do CCs increase your credit limit without being requested?

[Thump553]

In the immediate aftermath of the mortgage financial crisis, banks scrambled to lower their leverage and strengthen their balance sheets. A small part of this was to shed some of their exposure to consumer credit card risk. I was a bit negligent and had 3 old accounts closed due to non-use. BofA wrote me and gave me a chance to keep the account open, but I wasn't paying attention. The best run of the largest U.S. banks, Chase, didn't bother to give me that courtesy IIRC.

But yeah the moral of this story is use your CCs once a year if you want to keep them indefinitely.

Same thing happened to me, but I welcomed the closures-they were all cards I never use anymore. I read several times over the years that asking a company to close a card is a ding on your credit (doesn't make sense to me but is unsurprising).

I've always paid my CC balance in full every month and lived by the philosophy that you should have two major credit cards-one (preferably with rewards) you use for regular purchases and pay in full every month. The other card is for major unexpected expenses and is only used occasionally to keep it alive. I don't use debit cards-the consumer protection is far weaker on those.

My credit limits have been raised (unsolicited) many times over the years. I don't even know (or care) what they are. And I'm not an ATOT millionaire, just a regular guy from the land of steady habits.

 

[deadlyapp]

Same thing happened to me, but I welcomed the closures-they were all cards I never use anymore. I read several times over the years that asking a company to close a card is a ding on your credit (doesn't make sense to me but is unsurprising).

I've always paid my CC balance in full every month and lived by the philosophy that you should have two major credit cards-one (preferably with rewards) you use for regular purchases and pay in full every month. The other card is for major unexpected expenses and is only used occasionally to keep it alive. I don't use debit cards-the consumer protection is far weaker on those.

My credit limits have been raised (unsolicited) many times over the years. I don't even know (or care) what they are. And I'm not an ATOT millionaire, just a regular guy from the land of steady habits.

Even a bank closing your credit card affects your credit in the same way. Generally this is because your overall age of credit may decrease, your % of utilization may increase. The act of closing a card doesn't directly affect your score AFAIK.