£500 Amex bill and I cant pay it!

amtrakuk

Hi there i have just seen online my AMEX bill is about £500.00. As I understand I have to clear it when the bill comes in (matter of days), I don't have the funds available to clear it in total. What can I do?

I am happy to transfer the balance to a credit card but their website doesn't accept credit cards, only debit cards. I've always hated this card but it is encouraged though work.

Any advise/help would be welcome.

surrey_jim

if its a credit card then you only have to pay the min due which is 2.5% balance (i am assuming you mean the £500 bill is the total balance not min due)

if its a charge card call up amex and ask to be refered to the Financial difficulties team. They can break down this payment into monthly installments but its likley you will have a mark against your name until its up to date (and obvously you wont be able to use the card)

sdooley

Is a lot of it expenses? I know this may be difficult to broach but could you speak to someone at work about getting a direct transfer to clear them?

mikey72

If you just need to shuffle money for a bit, why not get a cash advance on the credit card. If you have a good card that doesn't charge from day 1, and has something like a 1.5% fee, I'd go for that as the best option.
Not ideal if you have to pay monthly interest on the credit card later, but better than messing up your rating with amex.

Bismarck

Has Amex years ago and hated it for the inflexibility.....would suggest getting an MBNA type card and making a direct payment into your bank a/c and paying from there rather than getting any black marks

Paul_Herring

mikey72 wrote: »

If you have a good card that doesn't charge from day 1, and has something like a 1.5% fee, I'd go for that as the best option.

With the exception of 0% BT offers, are there *any* cards that don't charge for cash advances from day 1?

YorkshireBoy

Paul_Herring wrote: »

With the exception of 0% BT offers, are there *any* cards that don't charge for cash advances from day 1?

I think Co-op used to do one, but the closest you'll get these days is probably the M&S card Sterling travellers cheque loophole...10 months 0% for a 1% fee.

amtrakuk

Thanks peeps... Might be able to scrap enough money together to get it paid. Once it is paid I am going to ask them to close the account. being a charge card you can't pay the bill with another credit card and it has to be paid off in full every month!