Flexible Spending Credit Cards - How Much Over Limit?

[simplynoir]

I tried researching this the past few days with little success probably because not many people would want to utilize the feature of a card with a flexible spending limit. So was hoping there were some experiences from any forum members here that have

My situation as shown in screenshot above is currently I'm using my BofA Premium Rewards card as a business card because it's the best way to earn cash on non-category spend with Platinum Honors status. Now even with the sizeable limit my card has the purchases for the whole month exceeds my limit so I'm having to cycle the limit several times a statement period because I don't want to spend over the soft limit. BofA did call to inquire about the purchases/cycling awhile ago and after explaining the charges BofA was fine with it as long as they were legitimate purchases. Been slowly but surely steering spending away from AMEX Biz Platinum because we don't want MRs with no travel planned anytime soon and cash is always nice

What I want to know is has anyone gone way farther than what your limit is when purchasing anything. There are advantages the AMEX card has and why it's been our workhorse: we haven't had a charge declined yet, the purchasing power allows us to carry a six digit bill and helps to not worry about it, and spending power tool can help whenever we're unsure. While it's not an issue for the most part I would like to not pay the PR card pretty much every week to free up the credit limit. I'll more than likely attempt a CLI request to see about getting more but I'll have to call them since link is unavailable right now

I tried looking this up both on forum and web with no success. Calling BofA produced similar results since they gave the usual spiel of it being a case by case basis and to call if the charge gets declined which doesn't help

Any help/datapoints would be appreciated!

[Remedios]

I only did it with AR, went $3000 over the limit.

Called them beforehand to inform them of the large future charge, got standard "your visa infinite allows you to go over the limit" but when I asked is $3000 too much (that was a third of my limit at the time), she simply stated "System decides" 

I've only had the card maybe 3 or 4 months and I was surprised they let it go through. 

[K-in-Boston]

This is absolutely a YMMV situation.  Usually it ends up being somewhere around 10-50% above the limit in practice.  About 3.5 years ago I was having issues with my then-$21k limit on the Amex SPG card and consistently went over my limit by about $5-9k a month (with a payment already scheduled and then I was well under the limit again before statement closing) and they never flinched.  With your profile, I would think $15-30k over your limit might be okay with BOA as long as you're making statement balance payments in full each month.  Unfortunately, most lenders are not keen on disclosing their cutoff so it really would be a case of use it unless/until it's declined and have a backup card handy.

[Trikoret]

Try asking for a limit increase if you haven't asked one within 90 days. It's only a soft pull on credit report. The max i can get is 120k with my premium card. I used to put 200k a month on but I used to make weekly payments. 

[simplynoir]

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@Remedios wrote:

I only did it with AR, went $3000 over the limit.

Called them beforehand to inform them of the large future charge, got standard "your visa infinite allows you to go over the limit" but when I asked is $3000 too much (that was a third of my limit at the time), she simply stated "System decides" 

I've only had the card maybe 3 or 4 months and I was surprised they let it go through. 

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Thanks for the datapoint. Even with a moderate sized limit glad to see they didn't decline a charge that was 1/3 over your credit line. Wonder what factors they take into account with charges like this because the information is very lacking. Has been a very frustrating few days on that front. Can only make assumptions on the usual suspects (time, spend, ability to pay, perhaps even DTI, and so on)

[wasCB14]

~$40k on a $13k Amex BBP. Mostly estimated tax payments. Low balances on other Amex cards.

Never tried with BofA.

[simplynoir]

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@K-in-Boston wrote:

This is absolutely a YMMV situation.  Usually it ends up being somewhere around 10-50% above the limit in practice.  About 3.5 years ago I was having issues with my then-$21k limit on the Amex SPG card and consistently went over my limit by about $5-9k a month (with a payment already scheduled and then I was well under the limit again before statement closing) and they never flinched.  With your profile, I would think $15-30k over your limit might be okay with BOA as long as you're making statement balance payments in full each month.  Unfortunately, most lenders are not keen on disclosing their cutoff so it really would be a case of use it unless/until it's declined and have a backup card handy.

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Balance gets paid in full before the statement generates at 200k-300k on average though it's going up the last few months. If this was AMEX I'd roll the dice since til the last few years they were the bulk of my credit card life. I don't imagine them declining a decent size charge above the credit limit. But BofA has me hesitant. I would like to think being Platinum Honors should hold some weight but it's not something I'm comfortable testing at least without more datapoints.

[simplynoir]

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@Trikoret wrote:

Try asking for a limit increase if you haven't asked one within 90 days. It's only a soft pull on credit report. The max i can get is 120k with my premium card. I used to put 200k a month on but I used to make weekly payments. 

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I haven't asked for a CLI in awhile so it's on the table. Will probably pull the trigger fairly soon if not tomorrow on that. And that's more or less our situation as well. Not use to putting so many payments on a card on limit this size but biz expenses don't play around

[Trikoret]

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@simplynoir wrote:

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@Trikoret wrote:

Try asking for a limit increase if you haven't asked one within 90 days. It's only a soft pull on credit report. The max i can get is 120k with my premium card. I used to put 200k a month on but I used to make weekly payments. 

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I haven't asked for a CLI in awhile so it's on the table. Will probably pull the trigger fairly soon if not tomorrow on that. And that's more or less our situation as well. Not use to putting so many payments on a card on limit this size but biz expenses don't play around

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Ask for the sky when you apply. They'll let you know how high you can go. I got a total 220k credit line with BofA between 3 cards. That's the max BofA was willing to give me. 

[Harvey26]

@simplynoir  When I worked for them a couple years back. I dealt specifically with Prefered Rewards Customers. BOA is big on relationship and deposit balances. I have seen BOA credit lines 100K plus but they are few far and in between and most of those people have significant balances. As far as going over the limit it really is a system thing.