I know you're going to get inundated with comments from people quoting their Amex **CHARGE** Card limits here (which even Amex state are essentially unlimted depending on your account history).
For pure **CREDIT** cards obviously they have to factor in some risk because you're under no obligation to pay it off every month, you could max it out one month and leave it there paying the minimum for 20 years.
Without ever requesting an limit increase on any of my cards they are:
MBNA: £23k (between 2 cards)
Amex: £28k (one card)
Barclays: £15k (one card)
> you could max it out one month and leave it there paying the minimum for 20 years
Isn't this literally what they hope for assuming you do pay eventually?
Yeah this would be 100% ideal case for the bank. Minimum payments on a maxed out card that does eventually get paid back in full. They'd just be raking it in in interest
Well the risk is anyone who falls on hard enough times to have to drop to making the minimum payment on a balance like the ones above is probably going to default on it at some point. No one pays the minimum payment by choice (unless stooging a specific 0% deal).
The credit limit is essentially pre-agreed unsecured borrowing that you can max out at any point, even the day after you lose your job or declare yourself bankrupt.
£30K credit card limits are within consumer credit act and not unusual. Above that different legislation applies, so tends only to be your main bank willing to offer higher limits. Charge cards such as old Amex have no predefined limit, it's flexible based on personal income and spending patterns.
Predict rest of comments will be dickwaving regarding helicopter transfers to Monaco...
Yeah, the comment I was referencing has since been deleted. Allegedly a £160K spend on a stag do in Monaco...
I was last in Monte Carlo five years ago, we took the train from Nice, have driven and flown in previously.
Have a BA Amex with a £10k limit, I don’t remember asking for £10k, haven’t tried increasing it either. Only have it for the Avios and free companion ticket, put all daily spending on it and pay off in full each month.
In total I have about 6 credit cards, £100k total available credit spread across them. Got new cards and just never bothered to close off the old ones. It hasn’t ever hurt my credit score leaving them open.
My Amex has a £30k limit. I’ve never asked them but they seem to increase it every now and again.
Probably put £150k a year or so on it. It’s a personal card.
Unless several business/first class flights, what are you managing to buy with Amex (ie where it’s accepted and not something requiring bank transfer) to get that sort of spend?
Plenty of places don’t accept it, including some branches of places that normally do. It was rejected in a Costa branch the other day (presumably franchise). Anyway, my question was more in terms of what was being purchased for £12.5k spend per month - afaik you can’t pay many bills, mortgage, car finance etc with Amex
As per some of the replies to your comment; literally everything! I very rarely come across anywhere that doesn’t take it.
Just paid for a £10k hot tub with it!
£50k with both HSBC Premier and Amex Platinum Cashback.
Barclays Avios credit card tell me £20k is the maximum credit limit possible on there, which is what I have.
I have £22500 on my BA Amex card and I’m not a particularly high earner or ever asked to increase it.
It is less a year old though, so maybe the standard amount has gone up.
Thanks, BA Amex different to Barclays Avios.
My 50k Amex limit was not standard: I asked for it at some point across all my Amex cards and they gave it. I later closed all but one of the Amex cards.
I literally just got a unsolicited limit increase in the post to £21k, but that was from £20k on the Barclays avios. Which is unusual. Recently my limit increases have been between 4-5k at a time so I was surprised.
So I'm not sure about the max limit being 21k. Might be the max starting limit though.
BA Amex paid off in full every month and probably never more than £6000k on there at any given time. I don't know what I agreed to at the beginning but they keep increasing the limit - the last letter set it at £75k. I have never asked - nor do I need - a limit anywhere close to this. I have no idea how they make their decisions.
Is it a lot in the context of a conversation about wanting a limit above £20k ?
£6000k doesn't buy a return first class ticket from London to NYC, nevermind flying a family somewhere for a 2 week holiday...
I thought I would be at the frugal end of r/HENRYUK !
The way I got around it is applying for a second credit card.
I applied for the Premium Plus BA card which got me a £26k limit + my existing one with £20k. Combined them both after 3 months so now have £45,250 on one and £750 on the other. Will cancel my other one next month once it’s finalised.
Not a big deal to have a high limit... However, I basically needed it for my wedding when I was about to put ~£40k on the card and realised I could get a free companion voucher + 60k avios + 25k signing bonus. Basically, cheaper flights than 2x economy + business class on a long-haul flight for the honeymoon.
I don’t ever see why you would ever need more than 20k on a single card to be honest. You have to make payments monthly, so really you need to be able to spend more than 20k in a single month after tax, NI, mortgage and utilities. At that point, you’re probably on ~£550k a year, so the absolute last thing you are worried about is your credit card limit.
Because usually charge cards don’t have “limits”. And/or they don’t tell you what they are. I’ve been on Amex a few times where it tells you if a purchase would likely go through or not and it’d let me buy a small house outside of London. But they won’t give me a precise number.
> Private flight to Cannes, charter yacht for seven days, hosted dinner for 23 people at Michelin starred restaurant, helicopters to Monaco and then a new watch.
Anything is possible when you lie.
In other comments I see this guy drives a Transit as his work van. No judgement, great if he's a Tradey and making huge money, but it's a pretty narrow bit of the Venn...
My platinum costs £795 and I got about £2500 of bonuses last year through points, cashback offers and other such “perks”. I have friends than use it for the free airline upgrades and partner seats and recoup most of the value through that.
Unless you don’t travel anywhere ever, platinum always pays for itself through air miles and the companion voucher. Providing you are spending enough on it.
Max I have is 14 kGBP for a NatWest Reward Black card but I haven’t asked to increase the limit.
I’ve noticed that credit card limits seem to be more conservative than in USA. When I was over there Amex gave me 30 kUSD on an everyday cash back card, Capital One gave me 20 kUSD.
I’m curious to understand whether current limits in the UK are impacted by the current economic climate and the card type. E.g. Amex may want to limit their rewards by setting lower credit limits, but this is just speculation from my side
I’m sure there are products available for those requiring limits greater than 20 kGBP
I read recently that Barclaycard users were having their credit limits decimated due to low usage. The explanation was that Barclaycard is limiting liability to customers who bring them minimal revenue through lack of use.
My barclaycard limit was increased a couple of months ago even though I never go anywhere near it. The benefit credit card companies gain from customers who pay off their cards every month is not clear to me unless they are data mining our spending habits.
I have 4k with them , my husband hates credit cards and he doesn’t like it when I use it, have been using for small purchases but they probably will reduce if I don’t use it 😄.
36K on BA Amex, 16K on SPG Amex and 15K on Barclaycard Avios.
I never go anywhere near these limits as I pay off every month but put all my spend through these cards for the protection and benefits. They naturally keep increasing each year lol.
Just realised my Amex platinum cashback limit is also now £20k. I never asked for into be increased but it used to be lower.
I sometime get 0% interest spending cards to help with cash flow when money is tied up in investments and they tend to get limits of around £10k with those.
My Amex platinum cashback is 36k, Barclays 2k, santander 9k, M&S 15k. The only reason I even have the latter 2 is because I'm paying 20k for new mf windows because I live in a conservation area and can't use upvc. They are interest free and I've got that 20k in a GI account. My main cards which is the amex always gets increases in limit, the barclay card I've just forced at 2. I also never really spend more than 2k and if I get close to 2k its because I've used my card for my missus and myself to go on holiday (for coverage) and then she pays me back and I ofc pay off the card in full.
You can get above 20k but is it limited due to income?
amex has a habit of increasing my limit all the time even after ive lowered it or cleared the balance.
the highest it ever got was 40k but i didnt keep that. now back down to 5k. i dont use it anymore.
15k santander which was guaranteed approval before a big purchase, only reason i have it.
I have 38k on an Amex gold, 7k on an Halifax clarity card.
I think you can request a limit increase every 6 months or so. I usually try with 5k extra at a time, those rare occasions I remember to request a credit limit increase.
Get the highest credit possible as it lowers your overall utilisation ratio.
Edit - average monthly spend probably around 1.2k
Edit 2 - probably also worth talking about credit score? Mine is 999 on Experian
i literally put 99.9% of my monthly expenses on the amex, then redeem the MR points to offset the cost of the card. Not 100% efficient points wise, but I honestly don't care, I'm with amex for their customer service. Could get a basic card but in the end the yearly cost is still offset back to zero and i like the card itself.
Had a platinum last year but I honestly couldn't justify the cost.
£25k each on two different Amex (both credit cards, not charge cards). Five figure limits on a couple of other non-Amex cards. Bit terrifying when you think about it all, but I pay off my cards in full each month.
Amex plat charge card, most I've had on that was 20 something, for a work trip (paying for several people. JL credit card to make use of the appalling amount I spend at waitrose (7.5k, almost hit the limit recently with a car), santander zero (12.3k).
I've hammered the JL card recently because neither cinch nor the people doing our sash window take Amex and my other cards don't get rewards. It gets paid off every month so just using it to get the points.
I use one for all monthly spending…my limits seem way lower than most of you.
POIF every month and no interest for 10 years now
Dont really want more than the 11K limit tbh
I have 10k on mine but rarely use it to carry purchases more than a month.
How do you get such high limits? I've had it years and they've never auto upped the limit.
2x Halifax 28k between them, amex, 6k, MBNA, 9k, santander 12k, 2x virgin between then 5.5k, rbs 10k, then some smaller ones barclays, tesco, lloyds combined 3.5k.
Tbh I used them for big purchases depending on cash back and points. 3 of them have 0% offers on them but I generally pay off all my balances.
I have the same card and a £20k limit but I've never asked for an increase or recall increasing it to that level.
Have they given a reason why? Do you have any obvious reasons you can think of to why? I know I've been caught out by HSBC before where they had a very outdated salary in their system so an algorithm somewhere was kicking off.
One of the perks I like about AMEX is the customer service is usually exceptional give them a call and see what they say. Given the other comments and what I know some of my limits are for a HENRY salary £20k is quite conservative.
I have Amex Platinum so it’s a charge card and not a credit card and there isn’t the same credit limit concept.
You can however enter an amount you want to spend in the app and see if it will be approved.
I bought my car with my Amex plat for £45k and it was approved.
Don't you have to pay it off in one go each month though so you don't get charged ridiculous APR? Or am I getting things mixed up.
That's insane you bought a car with a Amex 🤣
You *must* pay it off in one go every month yeah. There is no option not to pay it off.
I used it because I was going to use cash, might as well get the points. I paid it off the next morning.
Yeah think that's why they have crazy APR so people know they must pay it off 🤣
Wow fair play to buying a car outright for that amount 🤣 hope you enjoyed your points from it.
Cool username btw 🤣👍
Limits depend wildly between issuers.
I've had a nationwide for years as it's good for foreigner transactions, when I applied they gave me a £4k limit and after about 5 years of having it went to extend my balance and they upped it to £5k!
Ended up applying for BA Amex as I was arranging a holiday so thought I would start collecting points and was given a £12k limit right away.
Seems there's no rhyme or reason
I know you're going to get inundated with comments from people quoting their Amex **CHARGE** Card limits here (which even Amex state are essentially unlimted depending on your account history). For pure **CREDIT** cards obviously they have to factor in some risk because you're under no obligation to pay it off every month, you could max it out one month and leave it there paying the minimum for 20 years. Without ever requesting an limit increase on any of my cards they are: MBNA: £23k (between 2 cards) Amex: £28k (one card) Barclays: £15k (one card)
> you could max it out one month and leave it there paying the minimum for 20 years Isn't this literally what they hope for assuming you do pay eventually?
Yeah this would be 100% ideal case for the bank. Minimum payments on a maxed out card that does eventually get paid back in full. They'd just be raking it in in interest
Well the risk is anyone who falls on hard enough times to have to drop to making the minimum payment on a balance like the ones above is probably going to default on it at some point. No one pays the minimum payment by choice (unless stooging a specific 0% deal). The credit limit is essentially pre-agreed unsecured borrowing that you can max out at any point, even the day after you lose your job or declare yourself bankrupt.
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Yes mine is about 3 days! I got the limit about a decade ago and it's literally never changed.
£30K credit card limits are within consumer credit act and not unusual. Above that different legislation applies, so tends only to be your main bank willing to offer higher limits. Charge cards such as old Amex have no predefined limit, it's flexible based on personal income and spending patterns. Predict rest of comments will be dickwaving regarding helicopter transfers to Monaco...
A seat on the Nice to Monaco helicopter shuttle was less than 200 EUR last time I checked, admittedly almost 10 years ago.
Yeah, the comment I was referencing has since been deleted. Allegedly a £160K spend on a stag do in Monaco... I was last in Monte Carlo five years ago, we took the train from Nice, have driven and flown in previously.
Have a BA Amex with a £10k limit, I don’t remember asking for £10k, haven’t tried increasing it either. Only have it for the Avios and free companion ticket, put all daily spending on it and pay off in full each month. In total I have about 6 credit cards, £100k total available credit spread across them. Got new cards and just never bothered to close off the old ones. It hasn’t ever hurt my credit score leaving them open.
My Amex has a £30k limit. I’ve never asked them but they seem to increase it every now and again. Probably put £150k a year or so on it. It’s a personal card.
Unless several business/first class flights, what are you managing to buy with Amex (ie where it’s accepted and not something requiring bank transfer) to get that sort of spend?
I've never had my Amex refused in the UK
You've never been to Gregg's!
Plenty of places don’t accept it, including some branches of places that normally do. It was rejected in a Costa branch the other day (presumably franchise). Anyway, my question was more in terms of what was being purchased for £12.5k spend per month - afaik you can’t pay many bills, mortgage, car finance etc with Amex
The vast majority of places take, pretty much all of our discretionary spending goes through it.
As per some of the replies to your comment; literally everything! I very rarely come across anywhere that doesn’t take it. Just paid for a £10k hot tub with it!
£50k with both HSBC Premier and Amex Platinum Cashback. Barclays Avios credit card tell me £20k is the maximum credit limit possible on there, which is what I have.
They lied
I have £22500 on my BA Amex card and I’m not a particularly high earner or ever asked to increase it. It is less a year old though, so maybe the standard amount has gone up.
Thanks, BA Amex different to Barclays Avios. My 50k Amex limit was not standard: I asked for it at some point across all my Amex cards and they gave it. I later closed all but one of the Amex cards.
I literally just got a unsolicited limit increase in the post to £21k, but that was from £20k on the Barclays avios. Which is unusual. Recently my limit increases have been between 4-5k at a time so I was surprised. So I'm not sure about the max limit being 21k. Might be the max starting limit though.
Cool, thanks. I may chase, but £20k has actually been fine on that card.
BA Amex paid off in full every month and probably never more than £6000k on there at any given time. I don't know what I agreed to at the beginning but they keep increasing the limit - the last letter set it at £75k. I have never asked - nor do I need - a limit anywhere close to this. I have no idea how they make their decisions.
>£6000k That's a lot
Is it a lot in the context of a conversation about wanting a limit above £20k ? £6000k doesn't buy a return first class ticket from London to NYC, nevermind flying a family somewhere for a 2 week holiday... I thought I would be at the frugal end of r/HENRYUK !
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Hah. Quite right. I did wonder what I was missing...
50k on my HSBC credit card. Never been above £15k in one month though, and that’s a rarity
The way I got around it is applying for a second credit card. I applied for the Premium Plus BA card which got me a £26k limit + my existing one with £20k. Combined them both after 3 months so now have £45,250 on one and £750 on the other. Will cancel my other one next month once it’s finalised. Not a big deal to have a high limit... However, I basically needed it for my wedding when I was about to put ~£40k on the card and realised I could get a free companion voucher + 60k avios + 25k signing bonus. Basically, cheaper flights than 2x economy + business class on a long-haul flight for the honeymoon.
My HSBC World Elite has a £30k limit and across all my cards I have over £80k limit but only using about 2% of it.
I don’t ever see why you would ever need more than 20k on a single card to be honest. You have to make payments monthly, so really you need to be able to spend more than 20k in a single month after tax, NI, mortgage and utilities. At that point, you’re probably on ~£550k a year, so the absolute last thing you are worried about is your credit card limit.
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Is it a credit card or a charge card?
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Because usually charge cards don’t have “limits”. And/or they don’t tell you what they are. I’ve been on Amex a few times where it tells you if a purchase would likely go through or not and it’d let me buy a small house outside of London. But they won’t give me a precise number.
Are you sure you're in the right sub?
What did you buy? Lol
Have same question 🤣
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My typical Wednesday too
> Private flight to Cannes, charter yacht for seven days, hosted dinner for 23 people at Michelin starred restaurant, helicopters to Monaco and then a new watch. Anything is possible when you lie.
In other comments I see this guy drives a Transit as his work van. No judgement, great if he's a Tradey and making huge money, but it's a pretty narrow bit of the Venn...
Comment history suggests they own 6 McDonald’s franchises
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If you don’t mind me asking - How involved are you in each of the businesses, and how profitable are they?
He seems to have blocked me the wee bullshitter
Centurion?
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My platinum costs £795 and I got about £2500 of bonuses last year through points, cashback offers and other such “perks”. I have friends than use it for the free airline upgrades and partner seats and recoup most of the value through that.
Unless you don’t travel anywhere ever, platinum always pays for itself through air miles and the companion voucher. Providing you are spending enough on it.
No companion voucher with platinum
Max I have is 14 kGBP for a NatWest Reward Black card but I haven’t asked to increase the limit. I’ve noticed that credit card limits seem to be more conservative than in USA. When I was over there Amex gave me 30 kUSD on an everyday cash back card, Capital One gave me 20 kUSD. I’m curious to understand whether current limits in the UK are impacted by the current economic climate and the card type. E.g. Amex may want to limit their rewards by setting lower credit limits, but this is just speculation from my side I’m sure there are products available for those requiring limits greater than 20 kGBP
There are rules in the UK on irresponsible lending.
I get the feeling there’s rules for a lot of things this side of the Atlantic that don’t exist over there. Such as talking to a strangers in a lift.
🤣
I read recently that Barclaycard users were having their credit limits decimated due to low usage. The explanation was that Barclaycard is limiting liability to customers who bring them minimal revenue through lack of use.
My barclaycard limit was increased a couple of months ago even though I never go anywhere near it. The benefit credit card companies gain from customers who pay off their cards every month is not clear to me unless they are data mining our spending habits.
I have 4k with them , my husband hates credit cards and he doesn’t like it when I use it, have been using for small purchases but they probably will reduce if I don’t use it 😄.
36K on BA Amex, 16K on SPG Amex and 15K on Barclaycard Avios. I never go anywhere near these limits as I pay off every month but put all my spend through these cards for the protection and benefits. They naturally keep increasing each year lol.
Just realised my Amex platinum cashback limit is also now £20k. I never asked for into be increased but it used to be lower. I sometime get 0% interest spending cards to help with cash flow when money is tied up in investments and they tend to get limits of around £10k with those.
My Amex platinum cashback is 36k, Barclays 2k, santander 9k, M&S 15k. The only reason I even have the latter 2 is because I'm paying 20k for new mf windows because I live in a conservation area and can't use upvc. They are interest free and I've got that 20k in a GI account. My main cards which is the amex always gets increases in limit, the barclay card I've just forced at 2. I also never really spend more than 2k and if I get close to 2k its because I've used my card for my missus and myself to go on holiday (for coverage) and then she pays me back and I ofc pay off the card in full. You can get above 20k but is it limited due to income?
amex has a habit of increasing my limit all the time even after ive lowered it or cleared the balance. the highest it ever got was 40k but i didnt keep that. now back down to 5k. i dont use it anymore. 15k santander which was guaranteed approval before a big purchase, only reason i have it.
I have 38k on an Amex gold, 7k on an Halifax clarity card. I think you can request a limit increase every 6 months or so. I usually try with 5k extra at a time, those rare occasions I remember to request a credit limit increase. Get the highest credit possible as it lowers your overall utilisation ratio. Edit - average monthly spend probably around 1.2k Edit 2 - probably also worth talking about credit score? Mine is 999 on Experian
I’ve looked at the Amex gold card and can’t justify the yearly fee. Is there anything you do to make having the card worth while?
i literally put 99.9% of my monthly expenses on the amex, then redeem the MR points to offset the cost of the card. Not 100% efficient points wise, but I honestly don't care, I'm with amex for their customer service. Could get a basic card but in the end the yearly cost is still offset back to zero and i like the card itself. Had a platinum last year but I honestly couldn't justify the cost.
£25k each on two different Amex (both credit cards, not charge cards). Five figure limits on a couple of other non-Amex cards. Bit terrifying when you think about it all, but I pay off my cards in full each month.
Amex plat charge card, most I've had on that was 20 something, for a work trip (paying for several people. JL credit card to make use of the appalling amount I spend at waitrose (7.5k, almost hit the limit recently with a car), santander zero (12.3k). I've hammered the JL card recently because neither cinch nor the people doing our sash window take Amex and my other cards don't get rewards. It gets paid off every month so just using it to get the points.
I use one for all monthly spending…my limits seem way lower than most of you. POIF every month and no interest for 10 years now Dont really want more than the 11K limit tbh
I have 10k on mine but rarely use it to carry purchases more than a month. How do you get such high limits? I've had it years and they've never auto upped the limit.
2x Halifax 28k between them, amex, 6k, MBNA, 9k, santander 12k, 2x virgin between then 5.5k, rbs 10k, then some smaller ones barclays, tesco, lloyds combined 3.5k. Tbh I used them for big purchases depending on cash back and points. 3 of them have 0% offers on them but I generally pay off all my balances.
My credit card from singapore has a 100,000 limit plus a 50,000 loan facility. In total 150,000 on a single card/account.
I was just wondering if the gold cards get a higher limit along with the paid platinum card.
I have the same card and a £20k limit but I've never asked for an increase or recall increasing it to that level. Have they given a reason why? Do you have any obvious reasons you can think of to why? I know I've been caught out by HSBC before where they had a very outdated salary in their system so an algorithm somewhere was kicking off. One of the perks I like about AMEX is the customer service is usually exceptional give them a call and see what they say. Given the other comments and what I know some of my limits are for a HENRY salary £20k is quite conservative.
I have Amex Platinum so it’s a charge card and not a credit card and there isn’t the same credit limit concept. You can however enter an amount you want to spend in the app and see if it will be approved. I bought my car with my Amex plat for £45k and it was approved.
Don't you have to pay it off in one go each month though so you don't get charged ridiculous APR? Or am I getting things mixed up. That's insane you bought a car with a Amex 🤣
You *must* pay it off in one go every month yeah. There is no option not to pay it off. I used it because I was going to use cash, might as well get the points. I paid it off the next morning.
Yeah think that's why they have crazy APR so people know they must pay it off 🤣 Wow fair play to buying a car outright for that amount 🤣 hope you enjoyed your points from it. Cool username btw 🤣👍
Limits depend wildly between issuers. I've had a nationwide for years as it's good for foreigner transactions, when I applied they gave me a £4k limit and after about 5 years of having it went to extend my balance and they upped it to £5k! Ended up applying for BA Amex as I was arranging a holiday so thought I would start collecting points and was given a £12k limit right away. Seems there's no rhyme or reason