Bravo American Express!

A while back I posted an article about how I was getting an American Express Blue Cash card to replace my Discover. I was hoping that I'd no longer be getting so many calls from the fraud prevention department when I just used my card in my normal manner. My hopes have been realized. In fact, I haven't gotten a single call from American Express about my usage. It's wonderful!

But I have had one concern about my new card. My credit limit was lower--only 71% of my Discover limit. This could be a problem: I have about 7.5 weeks' charges outstanding when I usually pay my bill (electronically, always in full), two business days before it's due. I knew I had been using it a lot lately, so I went online to check my balance. Sure enough, I had used up well over half my limit, and there were still two weeks to go before I had to pay my bill. It was probably OK, but I didn't want to take a chance on going over--so I figured I'd make a partial payment now.

Then I noticed a link on the screen: "Request a credit increase." I went there, and they asked only two things: What limit did I want, and what is my household income. I asked for a 50% increase (making it a bit higher than I had with Discover), and put in the income figure (actually, I had to go and check my tax return, and adjusted it to only include the money we'll be getting in the future--there were some large non-recurring items last year). Then I hit enter, and got a confirmation page. The figures were what I wanted, so I clicked the submit button.

I expected to get a message saying they'd consider it and let me know. Instead, they said my request was approved, and my new limit would be available for use within 15 minutes! Now that's good service.