topic Re: Amex credit card - should I provide them with my amount of assets even though it's not required? in Credit Cards

Amex credit card - should I provide them with my amount of assets even though it's not required?

Ack226 — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 17:35:47 GMT

I have a fairly thin credit file and am working on building credit. I just noticed that on the Amex website on the page where you can update your income, you can also optionally input your total assets:

"Include all financial assets available to you. Assets include savings accounts, checking accounts, retirement accounts and other investments (stocks, bonds, brokerage accounts, etc). "

Should I provide my assets here? I've moved on from a very successful business and am in the process of building up another one, so currently my assets are extremely high as compared to my income. I'm wondering if this might trigger some kind of lockout or fraud check. I can provide proof of the assets I'll be claiming, but if there's a chance of screwing things up with my very new Amex account I'd rather not.

Also, I'm wondering what the benefit of provideing assets is. Does anyone have any concrete info on whether they consider total assets when evaluating CLI requests? If so, that would be very beneficial to me since my thin credit file and average income is currently keeping my credit limits pretty low.

Current cards:

Discover IT - a little over a year old. My first credit card - current limit $2,000

Amex Blue Cash Everyday - less than a month old - $2,000 limit.

Amex Blue Business Cash - less than a month old - $15,000 limit.

Re: Amex credit card - should I provide them with my amount of assets even though it's not required?

Dcowboy08 — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 17:52:52 GMT

I never provide more than the minimum of what they're asking for.

Re: Amex credit card - should I provide them with my amount of assets even though it's not required?

NoHardLimits — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 17:52:54 GMT

I have no concrete information aside from my own personal experience with Amex. Amex has been one of my most generous financial institutions when it comes to starting credit limits and limit increases. I always provide good faith asset estimates when prompted and have never been asked to provide written proof of said assets.

Re: Amex credit card - should I provide them with my amount of assets even though it's not required?

GZG — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 18:07:54 GMT

@Ack226 wrote:
I have a fairly thin credit file and am working on building credit. I just noticed that on the Amex website on the page where you can update your income, you can also optionally input your total assets:

"Include all financial assets available to you. Assets include savings accounts, checking accounts, retirement accounts and other investments (stocks, bonds, brokerage accounts, etc). "

Should I provide my assets here? I've moved on from a very successful business and am in the process of building up another one, so currently my assets are extremely high as compared to my income. I'm wondering if this might trigger some kind of lockout or fraud check. I can provide proof of the assets I'll be claiming, but if there's a chance of screwing things up with my very new Amex account I'd rather not.

Also, I'm wondering what the benefit of provideing assets is. Does anyone have any concrete info on whether they consider total assets when evaluating CLI requests? If so, that would be very beneficial to me since my thin credit file and average income is currently keeping my credit limits pretty low.

Current cards:

Discover IT - a little over a year old. My first credit card - current limit $2,000

Amex Blue Cash Everyday - less than a month old - $2,000 limit.

Amex Blue Business Cash - less than a month old - $15,000 limit.

if you're going to be spending signifigant amounts of money on your amex cards, and you want the capability of amex to give you limits and the ability to spend that your business would use and need anything over $35k/monthly perhaps I probably would

there's also a button to give amex access to your bank accounts so they can see your assets and they can use that information in sending you offers/giving you higher limits etc.

if you think your $15k limit is 3-4-5 times far more than you'll ever need or want to spend on the card, I wouldn't bother

Re: Amex credit card - should I provide them with my amount of assets even though it's not required?

Ack226 — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 18:06:55 GMT

@GZG wrote:

if you think your $15k limit is 3-4-5 times far more than you'll ever need, I wouldn't bother

The $15k limit is on the business card. That's fine for my business for now. The $2k limit on my personal card is kind of a pain and I'd like to raise that by at least 3x as quickly as possible.

Re: Amex credit card - should I provide them with my amount of assets even though it's not required?

GZG — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 18:08:53 GMT

@Ack226 wrote:
@GZG wrote:

if you think your $15k limit is 3-4-5 times far more than you'll ever need, I wouldn't bother
The $15k limit is on the business card. That's fine for my business for now. The $2k limit on my personal card is kind of a pain and I'd like to raise that by at least 3x as quickly as possible.

in ~90 days from opening, they'll very likely allow you to request a CLI up to $6k

you can ask for more, but that might come with a request for bank statements

Re: Amex credit card - should I provide them with my amount of assets even though it's not required?

Ack226 — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 20:02:21 GMT

@GZG wrote:
@Ack226 wrote:
@GZG wrote:

if you think your $15k limit is 3-4-5 times far more than you'll ever need, I wouldn't bother
The $15k limit is on the business card. That's fine for my business for now. The $2k limit on my personal card is kind of a pain and I'd like to raise that by at least 3x as quickly as possible.
in ~90 days from opening, they'll very likely allow you to request a CLI up to $6k

you can ask for more, but that might come with a request for bank statements

Thanks. To be clear, do you mean that they'll likely give me a CLI up to $6k without me providing my assets, just based on income only? Would providing total assets help?

Re: Amex credit card - should I provide them with my amount of assets even though it's not required?

coldfusion — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 20:53:39 GMT

@Ack226 wrote:
Thanks. To be clear, do you mean that they'll likely give me a CLI up to $6k without me providing my assets, just based on income only? Would providing total assets help?

Yes to an approval based on income, but providing asset information probably wouldn't make a significant impact at this point in time.

The $6K figure given was based on that being 3x your starting limit, which is the most that AMEX generally would consider approving for your first limit increase.

Re: Amex credit card - should I provide them with my amount of assets even though it's not required?

Anonymous — Sat, 24 Aug 2024 00:18:28 GMT

@GZG wrote:

if you're going to be spending signifigant amounts of money on your amex cards, and you want the capability of amex to give you limits and the ability to spend that your business would use and need anything over $35k/monthly perhaps I probably woul

if you think your $15k limit is 3-4-5 times far more than you'll ever need or want to spend on the card, I wouldn't bother

Basically this (I've removed the bit about linking bank accounts as I wouldn't!); If you really need bigger limits than you are likely to get on income (and as others have said, it's quite likely you can get a 3x at some point) then you may want to provide asset info. With the understanding that if Amex feels it needs to rely on those assets to give you a CLI, it may well ask for documentation. But adding it shouldn't cause a freeze or shutdown, just when you ask for a CLI you might be asked for more detail.

Re: Amex credit card - should I provide them with my amount of assets even though it's not required?

IsambardPrince — Sat, 24 Aug 2024 00:37:37 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@GZG wrote:

if you're going to be spending signifigant amounts of money on your amex cards, and you want the capability of amex to give you limits and the ability to spend that your business would use and need anything over $35k/monthly perhaps I probably woul

if you think your $15k limit is 3-4-5 times far more than you'll ever need or want to spend on the card, I wouldn't bother
Basically this (I've removed the bit about linking bank accounts as I wouldn't!); If you really need bigger limits than you are likely to get on income (and as others have said, it's quite likely you can get a 3x at some point) then you may want to provide asset info. With the understanding that if Amex feels it needs to rely on those assets to give you a CLI, it may well ask for documentation. But adding it shouldn't cause a freeze or shutdown, just when you ask for a CLI you might be asked for more detail.

AmEx wanting you to link bank accounts sounds like this UltraFICO thing I've heard about.

Credit card companies in general are starting to demand proof from borderline approve/deny cases because the economy is failing and they see it because they're banks. But AmEx has always been more cautious than most.