Amex Gave Me a Preset Spending Limit

[PhilL]

I have three Amex accounts all carrying balances. Today, I awoke to an email stating that Amex had put a preset spending limit on one of my charge card accounts (the preset amount is below what I currently owe).

I have a perfect payment history across the board, but my DTI is very high (I'm working to change this).

From what I've read on here this is definitely a bad sign. However, I've read about the preset limit being eventually removed in some cases.

i was wondering what my next immediate move should be? 

[JoeRockhead]

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@PhilL wrote:

I have three Amex accounts all carrying balances. Today, I awoke to an email stating that Amex had put a preset spending limit on one of my charge card accounts (the preset amount is below what I currently owe).

I have a perfect payment history across the board, but my DTI is very high (I'm working to change this).

From what I've read on here this is definitely a bad sign. However, I've read about the preset limit being eventually removed in some cases.

i was wondering what my next immediate move should be? 

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Although they offer POT on charge cards, that's not what they were intended for. They're essentially balance chasing you. To remedy it, try to get any charge cards they've done this to, PIF. From there, use them as intended, charge, then PIF. Over time with continued intended use history/lower DTI they should raise the limits back up. 

[NoMoreE46]

Are all three Charge cards?

Of those, how long has it been since they have been PIF?

[PhilL]

Two of them are charge cards.

It's been a while since I've paid them down to zero. I have a very large balence on one of them but I've stopped using it, and it's very slowly coming down to zero.

The 3rd is a regular credit card (cash back card). I made a more than minimum payment on this one this morning. 

[NoMoreE46]

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@PhilL wrote:

Two of them are charge cards.

It's been a while since I've paid them down to zero. I have a very large balence on one of them but I've stopped using it, and it's very slowly coming down to zero.

The 3rd is a regular credit card (cash back card). I made a more than minimum payment on this one this morning. 

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Thanks for the addt'l info @PhilL.

Did you notice if your Pay Over Time had decreased as well?

Hopefully you'll be restored back to the NPSL with those cards.

[PhilL]

The pay over time feature is at 0.00

to answer your question. 

Just just wondering, will Amex close the card once I've paid it off? Or do they just want to see larger payments and debt reduction progress?

[Tiggr]

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@PhilL wrote:

The pay over time feature is at 0.00

to answer your question. 

Just just wondering, will Amex close the card once I've paid it off? Or do they just want to see larger payments and debt reduction progress?

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There is no guarantee either way that they will close the card or not. I'd say most likely not. You have already seen the first negative action from them, if addressed quickly that may end up being the only thing that goes bad. As far as what they want to see, they want to see you use the charge cards as intended. You will have to PIF to fix this.

[krmurrayjr10]

Just adding to what the others have said, as I can speak from personal experience several years ago. You wrote you have a large balance on one of the charge cards, and are paying it off slowly, which is exactly the same scenario that gave me a present limit back in 2021. I then accelerated paying it off and the limit was removed after a little over a year.

Since the charge cards were originally intended as pay-in-full cards, with some payment flexibility on large purchases added later, your making a large purchase and then being unable to pay it off right away suggests to Amex that you're financially overstretched, so they're just managing their exposure.