max credit amex willing to extend?

[MudkipsRKooL]

I have 3 cc right now with amex, 2 business  1 personal. I'm already at 75% credit relative to my income level. I plan on getting only 1 more card with Amex, anyways is there upper limit on credit? Let's say 50% income for personal and another 50% on business? or is it 50% max. Or do they also put "family", "household" income into consideration considering my house makes 100K a year?

Does Amex have the "50% income/credit line rule"???

[coldfusion]

They don't have any such rule but they aren't shy about asking for proof of income/proof of assets either.  The point at which they may start asking depends on ones individual overall financial status and existing history with AMEX.  That can mean providing financial statements, authorizing an IRS 4506-C request, or a combination of the two although this wouldn't be a full-blown AMEX financial review.

They will use household income, but keep in mind that they may ask for evidence of such income.

[GZG]

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@MudkipsRKooL wrote:

I have 3 cc right now with amex, 2 business  1 personal. I'm already at 75% credit relative to my income level. I plan on getting only 1 more card with Amex, anyways is there upper limit on credit? Let's say 50% income for personal and another 50% on business? or is it 50% max. Or do they also put "family", "household" income into consideration considering my house makes 100K a year?

Does Amex have the "50% income/credit line rule"???

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if you have the need for the limits and are willing to provide bank statements (you'll likely be asked at some point) amex is willing to go well beyond what is needed or reasonable based on your spend

but if you spend $2k/month and want $100k in limits, you're going to be limited at some point regardless if the financials make sense

how much you ask for at once is a factor in CLI acceptance, so asking for smaller CLIs is safer (you can't ask for a $100k CLI and just hope amex will give you what they're willing to give you, sometimes Amex will just deny outright, even if they would have approved a smaller CLI)  

[Dadof31978]

way more than $75k..i have one card w $100k..the max is way more than you and i will ever know.

[SouthJamaica]

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@MudkipsRKooL wrote:

I have 3 cc right now with amex, 2 business  1 personal. I'm already at 75% credit relative to my income level. I plan on getting only 1 more card with Amex, anyways is there upper limit on credit? Let's say 50% income for personal and another 50% on business? or is it 50% max. Or do they also put "family", "household" income into consideration considering my house makes 100K a year?

Does Amex have the "50% income/credit line rule"???

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No, there's no such rule. Amex is flexible.  I'm sure many people have more available credit than their income.

[IsambardPrince]

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@coldfusion wrote:

They don't have any such rule but they aren't shy about asking for proof of income/proof of assets either.  The point at which they may start asking depends on ones individual overall financial status and existing history with AMEX.  That can mean providing financial statements, authorizing an IRS 4506-C request, or a combination of the two although this wouldn't be a full-blown AMEX financial review.

They will use household income, but keep in mind that they may ask for evidence of such income.

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They're more inclined to do this if your credit profile starts deteriorating significantly, you have payments bounce, or you ask for a ridiculous CLI relative to your stated income, you hit the "Check Spending Power" enough times to freak them out, you "cycle" a lot (spend up to your credit line and pay it off multiple times a month, you reach a zero balance without payment by the end of the statement period (like getting something posted and then returning it or disputing it and it brings you back down to zero before it closes), or you start spending in a way that is implausible for you or your stated income.

Like, you usually spend like a person who makes $60,000 and then all of a sudden you're racking up huge bills at Needless Markup. Or you said you had a lot of money and you're shopping at Dollar Tree an awful lot. Or you usually spend about this much at these places but now you're making one really big charge this month, or you normally pay in full but you've been revolving lately and it's getting bigger while you make small payments.

Basically, a lot of things can catch their attention and when it does they will trigger Financial Review.

Membership Rewards is a bad program if you expect you may get a Financial Review and they close the account. If they do an FR, they freeze your membership rewards and if they close the account they don't give them back.

Since I have cashback, I just make sure it's applied every month and that way there's no way to hit me and take a thousand dollars or something of my money if they decide for whatever reason they don't want us.

Now say you make an unusual expense and it's a one off thing. Like, your laptop breaks down, or you wanted to earn some membership rewards on a down payment on a car and you pay it right back off. Or you need a refrigerator and Plan It. You're probably not going to get flagged, but they do look for unusual patterns emerging.

AmEx has been around a long time analyzing across many millions of accounts what "people like you" do. They have gotten quite good at this.

[Gregory1776]

👆interesting hearing all that. 
Dollar trees can be freaking awesome, especially if it's not an inner city one, Dollar general? You can get the same deodorant as at target but cheaper. I'll use my debit card now for those stores. 😄 feels weird pulling out an American Express somewhere it doesn't belong.

I don't need to go to a boutique store for soap.

[UncleB]

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@Gregory1776 wrote:

👆interesting hearing all that. 
Dollar trees can be freaking awesome, especially if it's not an inner city one, Dollar general? You can get the same deodorant as at target but cheaper. I'll use my debit card now for those stores. 😄 feels weird pulling out an American Express somewhere it doesn't belong.

I don't need to go to a boutique store for soap.

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Feel free to use your Amex at Dollar Tree and/or Dollar General with no concern - I've been doing it for years with no issues, and I'm sure many others have as well.   I said back then and I'll say it again now, if Amex ever has a problem with my shopping at a store that's thrifty then they aren't worth having, anyway.   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

To be fair, there was a situation many years ago where this might have been a somewhat valid concern (there are old posts around here somewhere about Amex discriminating against cardmembers based on the ZIP code of the stores they shopped at... again, it's been a while) but these days it's not a thing.

[Shooting-For-800]

Amex hit me hard years ago based on industry of occupation.

(construction)

They knew the housing market crash was coming...