So I want to share my experience with the Fidelity credit card because honestly it's been a bit of a ride.
When I applied, I had an 820 credit score, zero negative marks, solid FICO across the board, and I was genuinely excited about this card. The whole "automatically invests your cashback" thing is a no-brainer for me (I had put off applying for this card for several months until I received a mailer with a sign up bonus and 0% APR for 12 months). So you can imagine my disappointment when I got approved for a $500 limit. $500. That's it. It immediately became my lowest card out of the 5 I have, and there was basically no way I could use it as a daily driver at that point.
I really wanted this to be my main 2% card, so I called the reconsideration line pretty quickly after opening it to see if they'd take another look. They did, but it came with a hard pull, so after that I just kind of backed off and ended up opening the Citi Double Cash in the meantime to fill that 2% gap (and I've heard the nightmare stories behind Citi, so I'm not really positive on keeping them long term).
Fast forward about a year and after my last month's statement, I finally got an automatic CLI, which was nice (I know I could've manually done this earlier, but I just didn't want that hard pull again). I called in today to ask if I could push for another increase on top of that and they told me I need to wait at least 30 days before requesting one myself. And to top it off, the rep I spoke with when I asked if it would be a hard or soft pull (as I've been hearing some rumors they are doing soft pulls) the rep didn't even know the difference between a hard pull and a soft pull. I had to explain it to him. At that point I just had to laugh (not at him), but it's also kind of frustrating when you're trying to have a real conversation about your credit and the person on the other end doesn't have a baseline understanding of how it works.
So here's where I'm at: I'm trying to consolidate down to two cards and I really want this to be one of them. It makes total sense on paper, the 2% plus the automatic investing is genuinely useful for me. But it's still my lowest limit card and I can't really make it my daily driver like this without credit cycling and I know that's bad to do.
Has anyone else dealt with this? How did you actually get your limit to a usable place with Fidelity/Elan? Any tips would be appreciated because I'm kind of at a loss here and I don't want to close the card only to potentially be brought back to square one.
My Fidelity Credit Card Experience (Frustrating CLI Journey)
byu/live_laugh_cock inCreditCards
Posted by live_laugh_cock
3 Comments
I’m with you on this. I have been playing the points game so long but wanted to switch to a simpler setup so i applied for fidelity visa with a score around 780. 500 limit with no increase. It’s been about two months and i’m just hoping it will work out in the long run now. Sorry not advice but solidarity!
Yeah I have about an 800 credit score, and my other three cards have a 10,000 to 15,000 credit limit. When I applied for the Fidelity about two weeks ago, they gave me a $500 limit. And it sucks because I plan on using it as my everyday card, so that I can use that extra 2% for a bit of extra in my brokerage account and I can invest more in some stocks and dividends.
I must have gotten extremely lucky. I applied after having opened like 5 other CCs in the span of two years and a Robinghood Gold a few weeks before the Fidelity card.
Went into manual underwriting but they gave me $25k right off the bat. Wonder if my USBAR relationship that I held for a year and closed in Jan 2026 helped