Halifax decreased my clarity credit limit

catwoman73

I've just got the same letter today, very annoying, but hardly unexpected. I only have the card for the free monthly fiver and overseas spending. Card was paid off every month. A limit of £500 will make it hard to spend just over £300 to get the free fiver unless I make additional payments. Will also have to be careful on holidays as I usually use to it cover all spending, car hire etc and while I don't go massively over £500, I probably go pretty close.

In my case, I have spent the last few months opening half a dozen current accounts to get some decent interest on my savings, and I have bought a brand new city car on 0% PCP for the free servicing it came with.

But my income and savings still outweigh my 'debt' several times over. I remember when I took the card out the credit limit was stupidly high, about £8k so I called them and got it reduced to £3k. I think I'll call and try and get the limit put back to about £1k just for a bit more flexibility.

virgo17

OP, do you do a lot of overseas spending on the card or buy things online in currency other than GBP?

Gilbo_Baggins

Yep.... USD transactions go through the card monthly so it is always used.

I think it just spooked me to be honest as I was at the time waiting for the mortgage offer. But found out today that it has been given the ok so over the moon with that!

The smaller limit is just frustrating, but not that much of a pain.

Nothing out of the ordinary on the credit file, everything as it should be. It's not great as I only finished my IVA about 18 months ago.

Passat86

The MSE site suggested a good card for use in USA was Halifax Clarity card. I already have a Halifax card, which they has just offered to up my limit on, so you would think this was easy! However after an hour on the phone, it was declined - no reason given as it was 'business sensitive'.

I don't have a good credit rating, but swapping one Halifax card for another - how difficult can that be. In addition as they did a credit search, no doubt my rating will be even lower!

lee111s

They reduced my limit 2 months after approving despite me not taking out any more credit (quite the opposite, made £1000 overpayment to a loan). I had used about 2/3 of the limit in that time both months, and paid it off in full.


I called them and had to go through my incomings and outgoings. When I explained this to them, I was told it was because of my remortgage (which was done 3 months before applying for the card!) After going through my finances with them explaining I had around £1000 a month dispolsable income, they were able to increase my limit back up to what it was.


I don't need a huge limit, but given that the max cash withdrawals is 50% the credit limit, it would have had an impact on being able to use it how I wanted whilst abroad.

Candyapple

vatic wrote: »

I applied for a Halifax Clarity card last week.

I already have a Halifax 0% card, which has been paid off in full and hasn't had anything on there for a month now. I think I started out with a 7k or 8k limit, and they increased it without me asking to 10k a few months ago.

When applying for the Clarity card, I asked for a £1000 credit limit. I was approved, no worries. I got the letter in the post today confirming that I have been accepted... with a limit of £100!!! Well that's hardly going to be useful while on holiday in the US...

So do you now have 2 Halifax credit cards?

I had read on here that if you wanted a Clarity card and already held a non-Clarity Halifax card that if you went into a branch they could change the card account over to a Clarity one so you would keep the same limit etc. but have a Clarity card.