I have just paid our American Express Gold card down to zerO, and we won’t be using it any longer.
In 2006 I made $29,500 dollars worth of purchases on my card. That included eight months were out balance was $3,000 or more. In 2007 I made $25,000 dollars worth. That included two months with balances of $5,000 and $5,600 dollars. Several others were in excess of $3,000 and a few others over $2,000. Last year, I made about $3,250 dollars in purchases on my Gold Card all year.
The last three Christmases this company decided it was a good idea to limit my December purchases. Three fricken years and no payment made more than four days late. I paid the big balances on time. Once payment in that period of time was three days late. Two were one day late.
I am a 22 year client of American Express. They make their money off my purchases. They get a percentage off my purchases, and I get to float my purchases on their card.
When I have cash flow issues to contemplate, I want to know that I have a partner that is going to be there. Well, these three years A/E set a $1,000 dollar limit during the holidays. And when my balance was $900 on my November statement, they wouldn’t let me charge more than $100 until it was paid.
I hadn’t been late on a payment in over 18 months when that took place.
My wife and I decided it would be best to use our other cards. We can pay them off just as easily as we can the Gold Card.
Pretty smart move on American Expresses part. A few percent of $25,000 is a fair amount of money from one customer. They won’t be getting it off our account any longer.
My wife as a massive line on her business card. I wonder how American Express is going to like losing the percentages off that card.
A/E has become too smart by half.
22 years is a heck of a plus on your credit scores. Depending on other factors, canceling the card could cost you valuable points. You should consider keeping it with just token balances.
They certainly have.
For quite some time they were a great company. I went from green card to gold card to platinum card, but in between the last two they were changing their attitudes.
I've given up on them as a bad partner.
I have a Citi AA advantage card. I always pay it off or there wouldn't be any point in having the card. They just jacked up my rate 3% to 17%. They ought to be dropping rates to entice people like me to borrow. The form letter informing me of the rate increase also lectured me on using credit wisely. This from a bank that made something like a trillion dollars in bad loans.