Out of curiosity, have you played with the Check Spending Ability button (and been approved to go ahead and make the charge) prior to having another charge declined? In addition to triggering the detection of possible fraud testing escalating $5k, $10k, $20k, $40k, etc. amounts like some people have, I recall Pooka mentioning that one of the other reasons not to "play" with the button unless you were going to actually make that charge is that Amex's system puts a temporary hold on that amount.
Putting that into practice, say your internal spending limit is $4700 and you have a $3000 balance. You use Check Spending Ability button and they say it's okay for you to spend $1500. You then make a charge for $500 and it's declined because the current balance + new charge + amount being "held" for that preapproved $1500 charge exceeds your credit line. Since you mentioned a lot of smaller transactions adding up to amounts over, that made me wonder about that since it's unlikely that ten $200 purchases would be on the same day, but might be spread out over a week. That could appear that they let you charge $2000 in smaller transactions but declined $1500, but if there were a hold causing that $1500 to make you go over your internal limit, it may have expired while you were making the $2000 over a more extended time.
Just a thought.
@Remedios wrote:Yo, @K-in-Boston that's the longest Amexpology ever 😂
I'm trying to get invited to the "Free MRs for Good PR" program. 
Seriously though, the "No-No Button" was mentioned earlier so thought it might be a question worth asking.
@K-in-Boston wrote:Out of curiosity, have you played with the Check Spending Ability button (and been approved to go ahead and make the charge) prior to having another charge declined? In addition to triggering the detection of possible fraud testing escalating $5k, $10k, $20k, $40k, etc. amounts like some people have, I recall Pooka mentioning that one of the other reasons not to "play" with the button unless you were going to actually make that charge is that Amex's system puts a temporary hold on that amount.
Putting that into practice, say your internal spending limit is $4700 and you have a $3000 balance. You use Check Spending Ability button and they say it's okay for you to spend $1500. You then make a charge for $500 and it's declined because the current balance + new charge + amount being "held" for that preapproved $1500 charge exceeds your credit line. Since you mentioned a lot of smaller transactions adding up to amounts over, that made me wonder about that since it's unlikely that ten $200 purchases would be on the same day, but might be spread out over a week. That could appear that they let you charge $2000 in smaller transactions but declined $1500, but if there were a hold causing that $1500 to make you go over your internal limit, it may have expired while you were making the $2000 over a more extended time.
Just a thought.
No, I don't even remember the last time I tried it. It was pretty worthless for my Delta Gold because they wouldn't let me go $1 over my limit. I just play chicken with the cutoff on the Gold.
@simplynoir wrote:Disclaimer: the supposed spending power tool says despite not putting much on my personal Platinum the last few months I can charge tens of thousands in a single transaction and it will go through so I don't carry the limitations like the one @Brian_Earl_Spilner and others like him are running into to
With that said all I can say is if you have to math to use a flexible spending limit as it the nature of the charge cards then AMEX is doing it wrong
Yeah, that's why I don't buy into the whole "internal limit is X times average spend over Y months" theory that gets put out there. I have never spent high 5 digits on one charge, but approved to go ahead and make the charge regardless even if total purchases were only a few hundred bucks worth of airline tickets on 2 of the last 12 statements.
To be fair, we are comparing apples to Froot Loops if we are comparing long Amex history with clean credit records to anything else, though.
@K-in-Boston wrote:
@Remedios wrote:Yo, @K-in-Boston that's the longest Amexpology ever 😂
I'm trying to get invited to the "Free MRs for Good PR" program.
Seriously though, the "No-No Button" was mentioned earlier so thought it might be a question worth asking.
Oh, The Boogeybutton.
I'm not ready to ramble about that yet.
@simplynoir wrote:
@K-in-Boston wrote:
@simplynoir wrote:Disclaimer: the supposed spending power tool says despite not putting much on my personal Platinum the last few months I can charge tens of thousands in a single transaction and it will go through so I don't carry the limitations like the one @Brian_Earl_Spilner and others like him are running into to
With that said all I can say is if you have to math to use a flexible spending limit as it the nature of the charge cards then AMEX is doing it wrong
Yeah, that's why I don't buy into the whole "internal limit is X times average spend over Y months" theory that gets put out there. I have never spent high 5 digits on one charge, but approved to go ahead and make the charge regardless even if total purchases were only a few hundred bucks worth of airline tickets on 2 of the last 12 statements.
To be fair, we are comparing apples to Froot Loops if we are comparing long Amex history with clean credit records to anything else, though.
On the flip side I find that doesn't work with his case as well. He's willing to spend on the cards, he has the money to make payments when they ask to continue spending, they just won't open up their wallets to him for whatever reason. If the reason they limit him is because of past transgressions not related to AMEX they might as well slap a hard limit on there til he's out of whatever timeout they're putting him on
Hey, thanks for reminding me. I got declined a new amex and I spoke to underwriting. They say my history with them is excellent, but it's my 3rd party accounts that killed the app. Didn't specify if it was current or closed accounts. Told me to call back in 90 days and they'll probably push me through. That's near my 2 year anniversary also. 🤔