The biggest downside to decreased credit lines is an increase to your utilization. Unless you feel at risk for using the total CL there is not truly anything to be gained by reducing them. If not getting future crads at limits you feel are deserved it is not a huge concern. Many here have been turned down for cards/credit with certain FIs based upon too much exposure (me included), but there are others with similar benefits. Entirely up to you, but I wouldn't and haven't worried about. The upside of the higher CL is your credit worthiness with at least that institution.
Specifically, I don't know of a way to reduce the CL on PayPal without cancelling the card. AMEX is more capable for that, but again why. FIs don't generally reduce unless they feel the client represents higher risk than their credit dictates.
My total CL is a bit higher than my sig indicates because I haven't updated.
May not have answered your exact question, but my thoughts.
Unless you have very low (or no) income, I wouldn't worry about it unless you have a specific need for the rare financial institution that might be sensitive to that. I've never been denied for credit for having too much credit and I have an outsized amount of revolving credit. That is a phenomenon that does happen with some credit unions from time to time, but would of course be relative to income and assets. If you are decreasing multiple credit lines in a short time span, it's certainly plausible that another lender's AI may mistake that for financial troubles or other potential issues with the issuers of those cards. There's no "credit line decrease requested by consumer" field in your credit reports; they'd just see that suddenly you had multiple credit lines lowered. That's not to say that a CLD or two is normally a cause for alarm.
If you do still want to lower the limits, Amex would need a phone call but should be able to do it immediately. Your PayPal card may require a few instances of hang up call again to get someone who knows how to do it (or how to direct you to the department that does).
@Bees18 wrote:Thank you my limits are close to my income, a little bit above but that was what I was worried about I'm not sure how they view that. I think I'll just leave the PayPal card as is and close the Amex Everday. That card has a super high interest rates and not maybe benefits.
Is there a downside to closing a card besides utilization (I'm ok in that). The average age of accounts stays the same right for ten years since it's still on your report?
Yes, the AMEX would stay on your report for up to 10 years from the date of closure. Perhaps you just use it for small purchases and PIF, then interest rate doesn't matter. The bigger question is what are your future credit plans?
Slightly OT, but PNC is the only bank that I am aware of that offers the card holder the specific option to request a CLD on-line.
USAA lets you request a CLD online as well:
P2 
P2 Future 
Chopping Block 
@Bees18 wrote:Thank you my limits are close to my income, a little bit above but that was what I was worried about I'm not sure how they view that. I think I'll just leave the PayPal card as is and close the Amex Everday. That card has a super high interest rates and not maybe benefits.
Is there a downside to closing a card besides utilization (I'm ok in that). The average age of accounts stays the same right for ten years since it's still on your report?
I agree with @K-in-Boston that you should just leave it alone, and that it is extremely rare to be turned down because you have too much other available credit.
There's no major downside to closing a card. The minor downsides are that (a) many years down the road it will drop off of your reports and no longer be counted in aging metrics, and (b) you will lose the benefit of having a zero balance card reporting.
@Bees18 wrote:Thank you my limits are close to my income, a little bit above but that was what I was worried about I'm not sure how they view that. I think I'll just leave the PayPal card as is and close the Amex Everday. That card has a super high interest rates and not maybe benefits.
Is there a downside to closing a card besides utilization (I'm ok in that). The average age of accounts stays the same right for ten years since it's still on your report?
From my experience and what I've seen on the forums, having TCL of 1x income or even 1.5x to 2.0x income is not normally an inhibition to new credit approvals as long as overall debt load is and FICO are satisfactory to excellent. The members I've seen have more of an issue are those with TCL at a much higher income-to-credit ratio. For most consumers, there's rarely any need to do a voluntary CLD unless they feel it's a temptation to overspend.
