I just found out this week that my credit line on my AMEX Starwood went from $10,000 down to $500. My AMEX cashback card went from $25,000 down to $5500. My AMEX Delta card went from $10,000 down to $2000.
I called Amex, talked to 3 supervisors, here is the scoop. AMEX pulled my credit report 2 months ago, and found I had too much credit. They said if I decide to use up all my credit line, it would top 1/2 million and that's too much risks for Amex, so they drop my credit line across the board.

I must add I have not done anything drastically within the last few years. I've always had the same number of credit cards, probably just like all of you here. applying for all the cashback/mileage/points cards I can get my promo points on. I've always pay off the balances, never been late once on payment. I got over $3000 back last year from my AMEX cashback alone.

The top supervisor recommend me to cancel few of my credit cards. I always thought it is better for your credit if you have more credit line, but less debt. by cancelling the cards I don't use, I would acutally cut down my credit line, so my debt/credt ratio will actually go up !! don't make sense to me. Just to add, my score have been over 700 for the past 5 years.

I just pulled a report from Equifax, and here is what I got:
Your FICO score of 741 summarizes the information on your Equifax credit report as of September 12, 2003. No negative items at all


Has this happen to anyone here ? is it really that I have too many credit cards with too much open credit? or am I not a revenue generating customers for them, since I pay off my balances every month (and get all my Starwood point and cash back)?

different cashback cards?

WalStMonkey said:

<< "I got over $3000 back last year from my AMEX cashback alone."

Pretty darn good trick considering that eligible spending tops out at $50k. >>

I do have the old cash back card, with no limit. Not the new one with 5% back.

probably they saw that they're actually PAYING YOU to use their card... and this was their way of saying F-YOU.

you can ask them to reallocate/ redistribute the credit lines if you use any one card more heavily than the others.

DeGlass said:

<< you can ask them to reallocate/ redistribute the credit lines if you use any one card more heavily than the others. >>

AMEX cut my credit line on all of my 3 AMEX card. although Starwood was the worst from $10,000 to $500.

First USA recently tried to minimize their risk with me, I had several high limit cards with them and they simply did not send me a new card when one expired. Since it was my oldest card, I called in and told them to reactivate it. The CSR seemed reluctant but they did, and kept the same credit limit....

Heres a related AMEX question- we have seen past reports that AMEX wants to start seeing financial documentation when issuing credlt limits exceeding $20k...can anyone confirm? Bellwilliam, did they ask you for anything when issuing you a $25k line? Currently my AMEX cards are just below $20k, id like to reallocate from the ones that dont have rewards, but dont want to trigger any flags by making the line on any one card too high...

Just to update:

found out my wife's AMEX Cash back's credit limit just went from $17,000 down to $7,000. My name is on her account too.

I had Fleet Fusion raise my CL to $13k a year ago, then I took a 0% deal for this existing card they offered to buy some bonds, and then as I paid it off min monthly payments, about 6 mos later they cut my CL to just about $500 above my current balance (about $11k at the time). I eventually paid everything off whent he 0% term ran out later in the spring, and then they cut my limit down to $500 TOTAL about two months ago. Reason each time given was "after a review of your credit report, your credit profile has changed ..." or some such thing.

I guess I really didn't blink, I had around $100k of balances across numerous cards through most of the last year, I figured that's what they freaked about. Oddly though, no one else cut my limit, not even AMEX (green cash rewards) -- no one except Kohl's department store card that is, a card I forgot I even had, they cut me from $2K to $100; I simply called & cancelled it at that point. Also, it's odd that they raised my limit in the first place, as I had maybe $50K of balances then -- I guess they didn't pull my report as part of that decision. Finally, my wife had (has) equally heft balances from 4/03 on, no one has cut any of her limits yet.

BTW, I will repeat what I always say, the credit score is bogus IMO, it is designed to distract consumers from looking too closely at their report & contesting errors ("Oh my score is 741, so it must be OK!" I think my score was well over 700 when Sears was erroneously reporting I was many months delinquent on payments during a card number theft problem I had a couple years ago -- and believe me, NO ONE was giving me ANY credit then). Major credit providers run their own algorithms, they probably don't even look at the score.

Alcibiades said:

<< From 13k down to $500 on Fleet Fusion. Thats pretty drastic. >>

Yes, I thought so too, particularly since I have never missed a payment on ANY card. How bad a risk could I really be??? But I think bellwilliam's experience is even more "drastic."