American Express Question

[oracles]

what if you have a BT with them. They would not frown upon paying the min and carrying the balance over?

[Anonymous]

My JetBlue Amex was very new when I had to book an unexpected flight/hotel/car rental to attend an out of state funeral. At the time there was no way I could PIF, have been making well over the minimum for the past few months, though.

I called them yesterday to tell them I would be on the other coast for a week, to avoid a suspicious use flag if I used this card in CA..I went on to say that I did not expect to, because I wanted to have it paid in full before using again, explained the large charge, blah blah blah...I have been very nervous about the FR after reading posts here, but the woman I spoke with was great, told me I am well within their guidelines so not to worry if I did end up having to use the card while still carrying a balance. My uti with them is just under 25%.

Very relieved, and this card will be paid off in a few months, so I am happy with them for now!

[Anonymous]

i was given a credit line decrease to 500 about a month after getting my credit line doubled to 4000. i was not carrying a balance on it at all.

[Anonymous]

Imducky wrote:

i was given a credit line decrease to 500 about a month after getting my credit line doubled to 4000. i was not carrying a balance on it at all.

They have just made u mad i see lol.

[Anonymous]

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mjbfan79 wrote:

Imducky wrote:

i was given a credit line decrease to 500 about a month after getting my credit line doubled to 4000. i was not carrying a balance on it at all.

They have just made u mad i see lol.

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yeppers. i canceled credit secure and have not put a purchase on my card since. the only thing i use it for is to put hotel and rental call hold authorizations on, but i pay w/another card.

maybe when amex gets tired of seeing those things in multiple cities in the us and europe on average once a month they'll either (as the rep said) "adjust" my credit line back, or request docs for an fr.

when that happens i'll either start using the card again, or tell them to kiss the snotty end of my stick. funny thing is that at one time i would have willingly complied with an fr.

[haulingthescoreup]

My tactic with AmEx is that I started with a charge card (Gold Rewards Plus.) I've been able to run $1-2K through it each month, because we've had some big-ticket items I've used it on, and I've PIF'd each month, as I'm supposed to. After the third month, I got a letter saying that I could carry a balance on chosen charges if I wanted to. (No thanks.) So they seem to trust me a tiny bit.

In January, I'll get one or two revolvers, and I hope by then they will have gotten comfortable with me. I'd like for once to be able to use a 0% APR without chickening out and PIF'ing it immediately!

Then I'll cancel the Gold in February or March, because I'm too cheap to pay the fee. It was free the first year.

[Anonymous]

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haulingthescoreup wrote:
My tactic with AmEx is that I started with a charge card (Gold Rewards Plus.) I've been able to run $1-2K through it each month, because we've had some big-ticket items I've used it on, and I've PIF'd each month, as I'm supposed to. After the third month, I got a letter saying that I could carry a balance on chosen charges if I wanted to. (No thanks.) So they seem to trust me a tiny bit.

In January, I'll get one or two revolvers, and I hope by then they will have gotten comfortable with me. I'd like for once to be able to use a 0% APR without chickening out and PIF'ing it immediately!

Then I'll cancel the Gold in February or March, because I'm too cheap to pay the fee. It was free the first year.

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too funny! i think come january i'm going to try for the plat (for the lounge access and 2 years of instant history in my case) and dump my blue (unless they cli heavily by then).

[haulingthescoreup]

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@Anonymous wrote:

too funny! i think come january i'm going to try for the plat (for the lounge access and 2 years of instant history in my case) and dump my blue (unless they cli heavily by then).

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Cool! I'll give you my Gold, and you can upgrade it to Plat, and you give me your Blue, and I'll start working it. (Please physically separate it from your Delta so that it doesn't pick up the Delta's bad mojo.)

Blue + $40 fee = full access to AmEx rewards. Cheapest deal they've got if you just want one AmEx!

[Anonymous]

delta was product changed to blue (requested blue cash, blue came in the mail) to avoid the plat delta annual fee (i'm seriously not giving them any revenue right now), so it may still have the funk on it.

[Anonymous]

When I called a couple of months ago to ask about a CLI (gasp! Now I would never dare do such a thing, having read about how temperamental AmEx is - I'd much rather never have a CLI than have one and then have them go all FR/CLD on me), the rep happily gave me an increase from $2800 to $7400. He seemed confused because he obviously couldn't see the full $7400 available on my account, and then said 'Oh! I see you do have a balance with us right now!' as if the $200-ish balance that was sitting on my account at the time was evidence of some shockingly deviant financial behaviour.

I found that rather... weird. It's not as though my card had been maxed out for months and I'd called to beg for more credit (as if I would dare!) - I just happened to have used my credit card for, y'know... spending some money. I was under the impression that was what it was for!

AmEx is a strange beast indeed. I've had zero problems for them, but of course everyone says that until the day they DO have problems with them. I kind of wish I didn't know about their antsy, twitchy ways - it makes me get all paranoid every time I dare to use the card!

Message Edited by fevmlo on 07-06-2008 03:49 PM