Tips for how much credit limit to ask for in new credit card application?

Yorkshire_Pud

Kim_13 said:

I recall being asked for the minimum amount of credit that would be useful to me - presumably so that if they could not offer that amount, they could decline and save themselves the expense setting up an account, producing and sending out a card that would never be used. 

I would work out the minimum that it would be worthwhile transferring taking into account any fixed element of the fee, ask for that and see what happens. If you then don't need a second card, great (and it may be harder to get a second card with a hard search already on file.) 

One possibility to avoid a hard search initially, to test the waters, is to try the chance of acceptance route. I did this yesterday with Barclays from within the app and yet again they asked me how much I wanted. Said 8K and they said yes. Didn’t progress it as don’t need it yet. Of course it could all change when doing the real thing! Some folks seem to be saying they never get asked how much credit they want but I usually do and they are all mainstream banks.

Volcane

First Direct…. I asked for £20k but got £4.1k
Lloyds…. I asked for £10k but got £3k
Halifax… I asked for £10k and got £10k

Nasqueron

Tesco and I think NatWest did for me - I asked what I needed for Tesco and got more, I asked what I needed for NatWest and got a smidge over (though NatWest told me in the application process the likely credit limit I would get and it was accurate after the hard check)