Amex spending power button

[Cblough93]

Can anyone give me more info on the correlation between checking the spending power button and financial reviews?

Is there a set number of times you can hit the spending power button before it triggers a financial review? Or does it more depend on the amount you check?

for example, it may not be how many times you check it, but if you put in a large number when they ask, maybe that's what triggers the review? Cause they wanna make sure you can cover the payment if they approve a large transaction? 

[visionsdivine]

Nobody outside of American Express is going to know the answer.

Only use it if you're actually about to run a huge charge. Don't keep playing with it like a child unless you want to poke the bear.

[Cblough93]

don't worry I have no intentions of pressing it. 

I did check my pay over time credit limit out of curiosity. And that was fairly high, so my "hidden credit limit" must be higher than that. Seeing as the pay over time limit is the amount they feel comfortable letting you roll month to month, and the regular hidden limit is meant to be paid in full each month. So I can only assume it's higher 

[Gunnerboy]

I only checked once, before paying for funeral services, so it was worth trying it.

I recall AskSebby saying he hit spending power 3x (20k/30k/50k) in the same day and it triggered an FR.  I believe that.

[Cblough93]

@Gunnerboy 

That's exactly my point, was the financial review because he pressed the button 3 times?

or was it because he asked if they would let him spend 50 grand and they wanted to make sure he could pay back 50 grand? We will never know unless we get a former employee of Amex willing to be a whistle blower

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@Cblough93 wrote:

don't worry I have no intentions of pressing it. 

I did check my pay over time credit limit out of curiosity. And that was fairly high, so my "hidden credit limit" must be higher than that. Seeing as the pay over time limit is the amount they feel comfortable letting you roll month to month, and the regular hidden limit is meant to be paid in full each month. So I can only assume it's higher 

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I checked once with my green card. Approved for a $50k spend. Did not check a higher amount. POT limit was $35k. AMEX keeps reactivating POT after I call them and get the feature deactivated.

[Jnbmom]

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@Cblough93 wrote:

@Gunnerboy 

That's exactly my point, was the financial review because he pressed the button 3 times?

or was it because he asked if they would let him spend 50 grand and they wanted to make sure he could pay back 50 grand? We will never know unless we get a former employee of Amex willing to be a whistle blower

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I seriously doubt it would trigger for how many times you pushed the button I have checked periodically to see how high I could go in my Amex green never got a FR, I believe the amount requesting would case the FR 

[brokevagrant]

Most seem to feel that it's the big amount s and not necessarily the number of times you check. A while back I tried it 3 or 4 times in one day and then it told me not to check it until the next day or something like that if I remember correctly 

Only time I've ever had a financial review was when I went in a spending spree and one of the things was trying to put 15k down on a car with my amex gold card. I passed the review and then they let me put the $15 down. It was hard finding a dealer that would do that but the dealer really needed a sale. 

Amex tells me they want to approve as much as we want to spend within reason but they also want to know that we can afford to pay it back. 

[UncleB]

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@Jnbmom wrote:

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@Cblough93 wrote:

@Gunnerboy 

That's exactly my point, was the financial review because he pressed the button 3 times?

or was it because he asked if they would let him spend 50 grand and they wanted to make sure he could pay back 50 grand? We will never know unless we get a former employee of Amex willing to be a whistle blower

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I seriously doubt it would trigger for how many times you pushed the button I have checked periodically to see how high I could go in my Amex green never got a FR, I believe the amount requesting would case the FR 

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This ^^^.

A former Amex employee who used to post on here (sadly he went anonymous) said that when 'the button' is used Amex expects you to want to make a purchase for that amount.  He mentioned occasionally seeing an account flagged in the system for someone checking on unusually large dollar amounts (relative to that account), but I don't recall him saying frequency was an issue.  I remember he once advised, "don't play with the button." LOL.

Back when I had a NPSL Amex I would check from time-to-time to see if a large but realistic (to me) purchase would be approved, and I never had any issues.

[CreditCuriosity]

I use to play with it when I had a NPSL card just cause i would and didn't mind providing financial to them and never got a FR.  I think I went up to 50k which I consider high.  I suppose it could be never did for me and did 2-4 times a day sometimes.  Shrug.