Amex credit limit - Question

Sammiec0108

Hi all,

I've just applied and been accepted for the BA Premium Plus Amex card. The card offers a 25k avios bonus provided a spend of £3000 is made in the first 3 months.

I have a big expenditure coming in the form of an annual rail ticket (£3900) and wanted to use the card to pay this, thus activating the bonus miles. However I have just found out that the limit on the card is £2000.

Can you clarify what options I have? I doubt the ticket office would allow me to spread the cost over 2 cards (although I may be wrong), I will call Amex tomorrow and see if they will increase my limit for a month or so, or could I (very briefly) put the card into credit and then make the purchase?

I've heard stories of people paying the amount anyway even though it would exceed the limit and that Amex wouldn't block the payment. Obviously this would incur a charge but how detrimental would this be to my credit rating?

Can you let me know which option would be advisable.

Thanks in advance for your help

mrchiggles

Pre loading the card into credit is probably the easiest way surely?

scottishblondie

mrchiggles wrote: »

Pre loading the card into credit is probably the easiest way surely?

And is most likely against the T&Cs, and therefore could result in the account being shut. I would not recommend this.

zagfles

Sammiec0108 wrote: »

Hi all,

I've just applied and been accepted for the BA Premium Plus Amex card. The card offers a 25k avios bonus provided a spend of £3000 is made in the first 3 months.

I have a big expenditure coming in the form of an annual rail ticket (£3900) and wanted to use the card to pay this, thus activating the bonus miles. However I have just found out that the limit on the card is £2000.

Can you clarify what options I have? I doubt the ticket office would allow me to spread the cost over 2 cards (although I may be wrong), I will call Amex tomorrow and see if they will increase my limit for a month or so, or could I (very briefly) put the card into credit and then make the purchase?

I've heard stories of people paying the amount anyway even though it would exceed the limit and that Amex wouldn't block the payment. Obviously this would incur a charge but how detrimental would this be to my credit rating?

Can you let me know which option would be advisable.

Thanks in advance for your help

For a purchase that size I very much doubt the retailer would have a problem with it being split across 2 cards.

Sammiec0108

Thanks all, i agree that pre-loading would be the easiest, but i have read conflicting information online about whether companies allow this. I know that they don't really like it, but as it is going to be a one off has any one got any experience in doing this? I have emailed the rail company to see if they would split the purchase and I will have a read of the T&Cs when they arrive in the welcome pack with the card to see if there is anything that addresses this.

If anyone has pre-loaded a card to temporarily increase the spending limit, can you advise whether I should inform Amex about this in advance to try and smooth the transaction or should I just do it and hopefully the payment will go through??

Thanks again for your initial opinions

reclusive46

Sammiec0108 wrote: »

Thanks all, i agree that pre-loading would be the easiest, but i have read conflicting information online about whether companies allow this. I know that they don't really like it, but as it is going to be a one off has any one got any experience in doing this? I have emailed the rail company to see if they would split the purchase and I will have a read of the T&Cs when they arrive in the welcome pack with the card to see if there is anything that addresses this.

If anyone has pre-loaded a card to temporarily increase the spending limit, can you advise whether I should inform Amex about this in advance to try and smooth the transaction or should I just do it and hopefully the payment will go through??

Thanks again for your initial opinions

Call them Amex are normally pretty good when it comes to customers communicating with underwriters, explain your credit limit is not high enough etc.

Sammiec0108

Thanks for this Reclusive46, if i manage to speak to an underwriter what sort of justification should I use for requesting a limit increase, ideally i need to double the limit to £4k to enable the railcard purchase, this is still not as high as 2 of my other cards (one is Amex but issued by MBNA) could i use these other limits as an illustration of credit worthiness? (total credit available is less than third of my salary)

sfax

You can try but I doubt they would double it immediately after setting it at £2k. They chose £2k as a maximum based on the information on your credit report and your income.

I would just ask the ticket office to pay with two cards.

InsideInsurance

Sammiec0108 wrote: »

if i manage to speak to an underwriter

Your unlikely to speak to an underwriter yourself but hopefully the call centre agent you do speak to will be willing to call through to an underwriter for you.

I had a similar issue, though different values, and Amex did increase the limit significantly after a discussion but then I am already a direct Amex customer and my relationship manager did the talking for me.

silvercar

You can apply online to increase your credit limit. You get an immediate decision.

I've also made a big payment to my credit card balance and the next day a flight was cancelled and that credited to the account, leaving me with a positive balance. I had no problem with this.

Sammiec0108

Hi Silvercar, thanks for you input on this debate. When you talk about making a big payment to the card was this to clear an existing balance or was this an overpayment to 'increase' your credit limit. I would have thought getting into credit due to a refund etc would be quite common and can't really be avoided, but intentionally pre-loading credit onto a card in preparation for a big spend may be treated slightly differently?

As for the limit increase online would this involve another credit search or is this just based on internal behaviour/usage patterns on the card. As I haven't had the card drop through the door yet I can't imagine I would have a pre-approved limit increase on the account .... maybe wrong though.

I will call them about the possibilities of making an overpayment which will hopefully allow the purchase to go through.

Also does anyone have any experience of Amex blocking a purchase as it will exceed your credit limit? I would be tempted just to make the payment for the full amount and immediately credit my account to pay it off, but of course this would only work if the payment went through in the first place (would leave my account £2k overdrawn)