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I was recently declined a new BAPP after 2+ years hiatus and got round to calling Amex today to find out why. They said it was due to having a high limit on my gold card but would send the application to another team to reconsider. I then checked my gold credit limit and it was £14.5k which is ridiculous for my spending on that card. I then discovered you can manually get it reduced, so I reduced it to £5k which is more than enough. Hopefully Amex will look more favourably now on the BAPP application. It seems a bizarre system that they don’t tell you about this when you get the “declined” email as it could be such an easy fix. It’s also obvious from my spend pattern that I’ve never had a balance of more than about £4k (and always paid in full each month) so there was always the option to reduce the higher credit limit.
Anyway, I know a few people have been declined recently due to credit limits on other cards so it might be helpful to know that it’s possible to reduce it BEFORE making a new application – go to “Account Management” then “Manage My Credit Limit” and fill in the new credit amount.
I did the same thing after I was declined for the new Plat credit card.
I reapplied less than 1 month later and I was accepted. Even though I was told to reapply after 90 days by the agent over the phone.
It just seems bonkers that they give you a really high credit limit, then penalise you because of it, and don’t even tell you it’s the problem!
When I got the gold card we had a healthy household income but I was only working 20 hours per week and earning under £25k. You have to wonder what they were thinking giving me that credit limit.Well it is the market of creditors now…
I must’ve said it in some other post, I also took a break from BAPP, reapplied 4 months later, but this time got half the limit I originally had.
After spending hours with Amex CS, I always thought, you need to get really really lucky to talk to a representative who has a clue.
Plus, their algorithms do not seem to be tweaked regularly. It seems that they just did it due to the recent cost of living crises and used odd parameters, we now see the effects of it.
Reducing credit worked for me too
It just seems bonkers that they give you a really high credit limit, then penalise you because of it, and don’t even tell you it’s the problem!
You have to remember HfP fans are outliers. I’d bet 90% of cardholders don’t apply for multiple cards or chase SUB.
Amex focuses, as one would expect, on the larger group – keep increasing the limit quietly in the hope they start spending more.
Reducing limits not only helps with Amex, but also with Barclaycard and Virgin etc.
Totally surreal conversation with Amex just now. They called me to tell me my application was still declined, due to my income, even though I had reduced the credit limit on my gold card – twice, from £14k to £5k then to £1k. Then said it was due to Experian but couldn’t say why. Then said no, it’s down to income, even though I now had only £1k of debt risk to Amex. I pointed out that 2 weeks ago my financial circumstances were exactly the same and that they were letting me have £14k debt risk on the gold card. Agent said she had no record of this and could only see a reduction of £5k to £1k. Repeated that I had reduced it twice and queried why they couldn’t see that on my account. Agent then changed her tune and said if the application team knew I had recently had a £14k limit, I probably would be approved to get another card, and she would send the application back to them.
I find this utterly bizarre as presumably if I hadn’t thought to argue this point, I would still be in the position of having my application declined. Surely Amex know what credit limits they give their customers?!If you only reduced a little time ago your old credit limit will still be showing on your credit report and you might have been denied because you have too much credit in total, not necessarily on Amex only.
The algorithm might also not have liked several applications for credit in quick succession.I think I mentioned it in other thread, for some reason decrease in limit doesn’t reflect immediately in all their systems, especially the one they use to approve new applications.
I suspect, as they source credit data from external databases, they probably don’t refresh frequently. It’s a bit strange as this data is internal for them.No, what they could see was the 2nd reduction, £5k to £1k. According to the agent they had no record of the original £14k limit and reduction to £5k!
I’d just close the gold card but I’m waiting for the 10k bonus points to post plus I might actually be able to use the 4 lounge passes when they arrive.
Sorry missed that. All they need is to look at one of the statements before you reduced from 14k?
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