Several people wrote to remind me that a negative effect of having your credit card limits increased (see yesterday’s entry) is that you can be denied credit–a car loan, for example–if you have too many credit accounts or too much available credit.  Excess available credit raises a flag because lenders fear that you might actually draw against those lines and dig yourself into a hole from which you can’t extricate yourself.  Just another reason to keep track of and control your available credit.