topic Re: Amex Pre Set Limit in Credit Cards

Amex Pre Set Limit

Anonymous — Thu, 14 May 2020 19:36:11 GMT

Hi there,

New on this board. Been reading for a bit, but first post!

I've had a small encounter with Amex a couple of weeks ago with a company charge that raised a FR, after that FR which only consisted account statements, all of my cards got their credit limit lowered and both my Plat and Green cards got a preset limit. Mind you I never have a balance, and charged over 150k on my Plat card alone in 2019. I have a very good history with Amex, including - Blue Business, Platinum, Green, Aspire, Brilliant and EDP. Most of them were lowered to the minimum credit they give the card.

I was wondering if anyone had any experience in getting the PSL removed, how long did you wait until you requested that. My worry was that my 700k points would be revoked but luckily they didn't.

I am moving my spend over to Citi (have the Prestige, Premier, Rewards and DC) and will start focusing on accumulating points there, although I do love Amex and their CS.

I know this was stupid, but hey you can't be always smart.

Thanks!

Re: Amex Pre Set Limit

K-in-Boston — Thu, 14 May 2020 20:20:30 GMT

Welcome to the forums! I'm glad you survived the FR relatively unscathed (other than limits), and still have the MRs. That would have been a very painful loss!

Unfortunately, you can't request that a preset spending limit be changed back to NPSL; Amex will only do it when they are ready to. There are many stories here of Amex restoring NPSL, but it often takes time to build that trust back up.

If the limits are still at points where you can maintain your previous spending levels (even if it requires multiple payments each month), I would suggest trying to go that route if you want to get your limits (or lack of) back, rather than jumping ship to Citi completely.

For the revolving card products, I'd give it a bit to recover and then ask for a 3X CLI on one of the cards. If denied, ask again in 91 days. If approved, ask again in 181 days. (A denial or approval on any card you have resets the clock for all of your cards.)

Re: Amex Pre Set Limit

Remedios — Thu, 14 May 2020 20:21:55 GMT

Hi and welcome to the forums

Could you elaborate on that mystery charge that prompted FR?

Re: Amex Pre Set Limit

Anonymous — Thu, 14 May 2020 20:39:19 GMT

Thanks for the quick reply!

I'm still debating with myself if I want to do that. That means that I should be pretty much paying my balance every 3-4 days, and then hoping that it will reflect almost immediate so it'll free up the available credit. Funnily enough though - I applied for a Business Platinum card, received it, and that one didn't receive a PSL, and allows me to have a nice spend, not as before, but pretty good. The only downside is that I enjoy purchasing tickets directly from airlines, and with that one I'll have to purchase from Amex Travel.

The charge was for one of our companies, and admiting here it was MS, it was very stupid from my side. My first try out of MS and apparently, my last ever.

Thanks for the tip for the CLI! I'll give it a go in about 3 months, we'll so what they give.

Fortunately since I do not have balances on any card, the lower CL didn't effect any credit score.

Re: Amex Pre Set Limit

K-in-Boston — Thu, 14 May 2020 20:57:59 GMT

Making any charge with a merchant that you can be directly connected to will always result in a FR (and often complete account closure) with Amex.

Re: Amex Pre Set Limit

Anonymous — Thu, 14 May 2020 21:01:09 GMT

Yep, figured that. Again - stupid from me side .

Re: Amex Pre Set Limit

Anonymous — Thu, 14 May 2020 22:21:42 GMT

Both my AMEX Platinum and AMEX Gold cards have pre-set limits. My Business Platinum Card can still reach at least $10k as it always could so I think they keep them in seperate buckets for the most part.

Neither of the pre-set limits stop me from using them, so I haven't bother to ask for the NPSL's to be re-instated. As a previous posts suggests, I guess they'll re-instated it when they feel like it.

Re: Amex Pre Set Limit

elixerin — Fri, 15 May 2020 01:59:10 GMT

bit off topic, sorry. Do PSL charge cards report as CL's on reports?

Re: Amex Pre Set Limit

CountryLad — Fri, 15 May 2020 02:26:27 GMT

@K-in-Boston wrote:
Making any charge with a merchant that you can be directly connected to will always result in a FR (and often complete account closure) with Amex.

Okay... have to ask -- what's an MS charge that you can be directly connected to? A bit naive here and don't want to make the same mistake. Asking for education only. Thank you.

Re: Amex Pre Set Limit

K-in-Boston — Fri, 15 May 2020 02:42:18 GMT

@elixerin wrote:
bit off topic, sorry. Do PSL charge cards report as CL's on reports?

They do not. They will continue to report as charge cards with 1 Month terms. The limit is between you and Amex alone.

Re: Amex Pre Set Limit

K-in-Boston — Fri, 15 May 2020 02:51:40 GMT

@CountryLad wrote:
@K-in-Boston wrote:
Making any charge with a merchant that you can be directly connected to will always result in a FR (and often complete account closure) with Amex.
Okay... have to ask -- what's an MS charge that you can be directly connected to? A bit naive here and don't want to make the same mistake. Asking for education only. Thank you.

It's fine! Discussing manufactured spending here is okay; advocating it or discussing specific ways to get away with it is not.

An obvious example is that you are the owner of Acme Company, Inc. You run your personal card through Acme's credit card terminal for $10,000 to hit the spending for a SUB. The next business day you have $10,000 deposited into your checking account from your merchant CC processor (and at the end of the month have ~$300 debited for merchant fees). Amex knows you own Acme, and know that you just manufactured spending to meet the terms of the Welcome Offer, and you also skirted their cash advance policies.

Another example would be that you use PayPal to send $5,000 to your spouse. Again, you just skirted their cash advance policies. (Note: normal PayPal transactions are perfectly fine with Amex.)

A third example would be one we saw here a while back. Someone had their accounts shut down because they ran one through their uncle's furniture store. Whether it was a legitimate large purchase or a cash advance, who knows? But Amex like every other lender has access to 3rd party consumer data. You know when you have to answer security questions, and things like "Which of the following people do you know?" are one of the questions? Yeah, that's how they tied you to Uncle Bob and his furniture store.

Re: Amex Pre Set Limit

CountryLad — Fri, 15 May 2020 04:15:16 GMT

Thanks K-in-Boston for the reply and taking the time to be so detailed. Much appreciated.