Virgin Credit Card Application

RW78

I applied for a Virgin Atlantic credit card.  Eligibility check said I was pre-approved.  Went ahead with the application on Friday and got a decline email today.  I have good credit history, also a relatively high credit limit among my 6 credit credit cards, but without much ultilisation.  What is likely the reason?  Anybody experienced same thing with Virgin - pre-approved then declined afterwards?

CliveOfIndia

An eligibility check gives you a rough idea of whether or not you might be accepted, but it's not until you submit an application and they run a full credit search that you'll know for sure.  This is not peculiar to Virgin, it's true of all lenders.

It could be due to any number of factors.  As each lender has their own acceptance criteria (which are highly confidential), you'll never know exactly why they declined you.  Common things are your level of existing debt in relation to income, whether you have any negative marks on your history, whether you're on the ER, that kind of thing.

It's also possible that your existing high level of credit availability may play a part.  Even though you're not using it, you could in theory go out tomorrow and max out every card.

Check all three of your credit files.  Ignore the meaningless score, along with the CRA's assessment of your credit-worthiness.  Just check that all the data are factually correct, and that there are no negative marks recorded.

Nasqueron

I was pre-approved for a Virgin BT card (based on CRA, always take it with a pinch of salt) and went for manual review and got declined in the end. Got a Tesco card a few months later 

You can appeal if you want but as above check your files - it's possible also you don't meet their criteria for some reason, you'll never be told why as it's commercially sensitive

born_again

RW78 said:

I applied for a Virgin Atlantic credit card.  Eligibility check said I was pre-approved.  Went ahead with the application on Friday and got a decline email today.  I have good credit history, also a relatively high credit limit among my 6 credit credit cards, but without much ultilisation.  What is likely the reason?  Anybody experienced same thing with Virgin - pre-approved then declined afterwards?

At a guess they have picked up on that & said no due to a high risk of potential debt. Ultilisation does not come into the equation. 
It's available debt against income.

RW78

born_again said:

RW78 said:

I applied for a Virgin Atlantic credit card.  Eligibility check said I was pre-approved.  Went ahead with the application on Friday and got a decline email today.  I have good credit history, also a relatively high credit limit among my 6 credit credit cards, but without much ultilisation.  What is likely the reason?  Anybody experienced same thing with Virgin - pre-approved then declined afterwards?

At a guess they have picked up on that & said no due to a high risk of potential debt. Ultilisation does not come into the equation. 
It's available debt against income.

My total available credit is about 35% higher than my annual income.  Not sure if this is considered high risk based on the available debt income ratio.

RW78

Nasqueron said:

I was pre-approved for a Virgin BT card (based on CRA, always take it with a pinch of salt) and went for manual review and got declined in the end. Got a Tesco card a few months later 

You can appeal if you want but as above check your files - it's possible also you don't meet their criteria for some reason, you'll never be told why as it's commercially sensitive

I was kind of surprised because I used the checker on the Virgin site.  Actually I did an eligibility check a couple of months back but didn’t go through.  I tried again last week, it went through so I proceed with the full application as prompted.

CliveOfIndia

RW78 said:

Nasqueron said:

I was pre-approved for a Virgin BT card (based on CRA, always take it with a pinch of salt) and went for manual review and got declined in the end. Got a Tesco card a few months later 

You can appeal if you want but as above check your files - it's possible also you don't meet their criteria for some reason, you'll never be told why as it's commercially sensitive

I was kind of surprised because I used the checker on the Virgin site. 

Yes, a bank's own eligibility checker will usually be more accurate that a third-party aggregator site.  But even so, the eligibility check only uses a small subset of your available data (hence why it only leaves a soft search).  When they do a hard search and get visibility of all your data, it's quite possible for it to produce a different result.

It simply means you don't match their lending criteria for whatever reason.  Each lender will have different criteria, different risk appetites and a different target customer profile.  So one lender may reject you whereas another will accept you.

born_again

RW78 said:

born_again said:

RW78 said:

I applied for a Virgin Atlantic credit card.  Eligibility check said I was pre-approved.  Went ahead with the application on Friday and got a decline email today.  I have good credit history, also a relatively high credit limit among my 6 credit credit cards, but without much ultilisation.  What is likely the reason?  Anybody experienced same thing with Virgin - pre-approved then declined afterwards?

At a guess they have picked up on that & said no due to a high risk of potential debt. Ultilisation does not come into the equation. 
It's available debt against income.

My total available credit is about 35% higher than my annual income.  Not sure if this is considered high risk based on the available debt income ratio.

A very high risk.

It's not the actual debt you are carrying, it's what you could be carrying.

Nasqueron

born_again said:

RW78 said:

born_again said:

RW78 said:

I applied for a Virgin Atlantic credit card.  Eligibility check said I was pre-approved.  Went ahead with the application on Friday and got a decline email today.  I have good credit history, also a relatively high credit limit among my 6 credit credit cards, but without much ultilisation.  What is likely the reason?  Anybody experienced same thing with Virgin - pre-approved then declined afterwards?

At a guess they have picked up on that & said no due to a high risk of potential debt. Ultilisation does not come into the equation. 
It's available debt against income.

My total available credit is about 35% higher than my annual income.  Not sure if this is considered high risk based on the available debt income ratio.

A very high risk.

It's not the actual debt you are carrying, it's what you could be carrying.

To be fair, my total card limit is about 20% more than income with around 2/3 free at the moment and not had issues getting cards

Rajix

Likely debt to income ratio