I got the same letter from Chase. I got this card in college with a limit of $500. Rarely used it but over the years the credit limit went up to $22,000 which is where it has been. They cut it to $10,000 which is fine.
AmEx cancelled my card for lack of use a few years ago. Pissed me off that I lost something like 30k points - which mighta gotten me a pair of socks or something.
Eff 'em. I've gotten 'offers' from them since. You gotta be kidding me, right? lol
Eff 'em. I've gotten 'offers' from them since. You gotta be kidding me, right? lol
I have an Apple Card, the fancy titanium metal one with no numbers on it. They give cash back of 3% on all Apple Store purchases; 2% on all Apple Pay purchases (where you hold your phone up to the reader); and 1% cash on every other purchase. I’ve never paid them a penny of interest and am making bank on their cash back as I use this card for everything and pay the balance in full every month. Not sure how long this business model will hold up, but I’m gonna ride it as long as they’ll let me.
I had this happen to me several years ago with my NRA credit card with Bank of Omaha. I opened it with a 4,000 limit and used the initial 0% interest rate offer. Paid it off ... then two years later they just out of the blue dropped my limit to 1,000. Nothing negative had happened in my credit report to make them take this action. Then about a year later they simply cancelled my card from lack of use. When banks start doing this crap, it can impact your credit score.
I use several credit cards now, mainly the cash back ones. Which one I use depends on the highest percent I get back for that category. USAA American Express is my go-to; 5% on gas, 2% on groceries & 1% on everything else. Discover changes their categories every quarter. Home Depot is 5% during the month of June, so I will checkout Father's Day deals on tools. The bonus for Discover is using my cashback to buy gift cards, like $50 for $40.
I pay them off every month, so its like FREE MONEY!
I use several credit cards now, mainly the cash back ones. Which one I use depends on the highest percent I get back for that category. USAA American Express is my go-to; 5% on gas, 2% on groceries & 1% on everything else. Discover changes their categories every quarter. Home Depot is 5% during the month of June, so I will checkout Father's Day deals on tools. The bonus for Discover is using my cashback to buy gift cards, like $50 for $40.
I pay them off every month, so its like FREE MONEY!
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I had a weird experience with a credit card company several years ago, and I'm still not sure what it was.
Got a cold call one day from someone saying they were with the company of a card we actually had. They wanted to update my account info. She started asking questions about my employment, I told her I'm not answering personal questions over the phone, if they want to update my information send me a request in the mail. She said this was standard procedure for credit card companies, I told her I've had multiple cards for twenty some years and no company had EVER cold called me like that asking for personal information.
Got 2-3 more calls from them, I finally cut up the credit card, sent it back and told them to close the account.
Got one more call, and she started to explain to me why they wanted the information, I told her I had closed the account. She said, "Can I just ask you one question?" I said no, I am not your customer, you don't need ANY information from me. Never got any more calls.
Don't know to this day if it was an attempted scam, or legitimate call from the CC company. Have never before or since had one call asking for information over the phone, other than the occasional question of whether a charge was legitimate.
Got a cold call one day from someone saying they were with the company of a card we actually had. They wanted to update my account info. She started asking questions about my employment, I told her I'm not answering personal questions over the phone, if they want to update my information send me a request in the mail. She said this was standard procedure for credit card companies, I told her I've had multiple cards for twenty some years and no company had EVER cold called me like that asking for personal information.
Got 2-3 more calls from them, I finally cut up the credit card, sent it back and told them to close the account.
Got one more call, and she started to explain to me why they wanted the information, I told her I had closed the account. She said, "Can I just ask you one question?" I said no, I am not your customer, you don't need ANY information from me. Never got any more calls.
Don't know to this day if it was an attempted scam, or legitimate call from the CC company. Have never before or since had one call asking for information over the phone, other than the occasional question of whether a charge was legitimate.
I had one closed on me recently. for non use Dinged my credit score in a couple areas. I'd had the card for 20 something years, so my average age of credit went down slightly, and my available credit limit was reduced. It didn't ding it much, and it was a tire store card so the limit was only 2 grand any way, so that wasn't a big hit either, but if you're new to credit, and don't have a big limit, it will have an impact.
Credit is funny though. When I paid off my mortgage several years ago, I thought my score would just skyrocket. It dropped a 100 points down to the mid to low 700's. I thought, WTH happened, and then realized exactly what I'd done. It recovered within about 6 months to where it was before, but I found that strange. Just because you understand how they score you, doesn't mean you understand how they score you. Credit scores are weird.
Credit is funny though. When I paid off my mortgage several years ago, I thought my score would just skyrocket. It dropped a 100 points down to the mid to low 700's. I thought, WTH happened, and then realized exactly what I'd done. It recovered within about 6 months to where it was before, but I found that strange. Just because you understand how they score you, doesn't mean you understand how they score you. Credit scores are weird.
I've had credit cards canceled completely for lack of use.
I don't know exactly what the "low limit of use" is, but yes, it will happen.
Woody
Like JaySTaylor62 above, I go through lots of cards per year --- and make tons of money in free travel. So I like to think I am probably more up to speed on this than most people. That said, a couple of points:
* It is a routine thing that they'll drop the credit limits if the cards aren't being used. To the best of my knowledge -Pjackso's explanation is correct. They don't want the liability in case someone has the ability to charge up a bunch and not pay it.
* Reduction in credit lines can and will hurt your score. The reason being that a big component of your score is debt to utilization ratio. This is a global measurement including all lines of credit secured, unsecured, mortgage etc. So if the credit line drops, the utilization goes up, which drives the score down.
* Similarly, letting cards get canceled can hurt you. Another metric for credit score is "average length of credit". I've got a few cards for 20+ years that I baby because they anchor my credit average while I rotate 2-3 cards a year.
* Why does it matter? Each of the cards I get has a sort of "base value" and their "bonus value". Let's say I get a 140k bonus for Hilton, what is that worth? On average their points are worth $0.005 each meaning a value of $700 for the bonus. But on average I redeem them for .01-.014 making the bonus $1500-$2000 of hotel stays for my family. Airlines are the same --- on average I value airline points at 1.5 cents each.
* A real world example is that I booked a trip to Hawaii for three a while back:
Paid 60k of Citi points for $2400 worth of flights (4cents a point)
Paid about 160k of Hilton points for $3000 of hotels (1.87cents a point)
Paid about $600 out of pocket for rental cars (getting those on points is worthless)
So at the end of the day I got around $5500 for free. Most of those points were acquired free on bonuses for spending that I would have already done --- I just spent smartly when going to acquire the bonus. I think the Citi points were a bonus from putting a down payment on my truck for instance.
Credit is wonderful if used correctly. Without getting into a masters class on it, I'm getting on average 3-10% back on most purchases, have no liability if my card is compromised, get upgraded seats in planes, airport lounge access, free bags, purchase protections, trip planning, return and warranty protections, cell phone insurance, and a host of other benefits. If I didn't believe in the travel aspect I'd at minimum be getting 2% cashback compared to using cash or a debit card and 2% is 2%. Travel cards work best for me because I travel for work and can stack my work's spending on there and sometimes triple my intake of points for free.
* It is a routine thing that they'll drop the credit limits if the cards aren't being used. To the best of my knowledge -Pjackso's explanation is correct. They don't want the liability in case someone has the ability to charge up a bunch and not pay it.
* Reduction in credit lines can and will hurt your score. The reason being that a big component of your score is debt to utilization ratio. This is a global measurement including all lines of credit secured, unsecured, mortgage etc. So if the credit line drops, the utilization goes up, which drives the score down.
* Similarly, letting cards get canceled can hurt you. Another metric for credit score is "average length of credit". I've got a few cards for 20+ years that I baby because they anchor my credit average while I rotate 2-3 cards a year.
* Why does it matter? Each of the cards I get has a sort of "base value" and their "bonus value". Let's say I get a 140k bonus for Hilton, what is that worth? On average their points are worth $0.005 each meaning a value of $700 for the bonus. But on average I redeem them for .01-.014 making the bonus $1500-$2000 of hotel stays for my family. Airlines are the same --- on average I value airline points at 1.5 cents each.
* A real world example is that I booked a trip to Hawaii for three a while back:
Paid 60k of Citi points for $2400 worth of flights (4cents a point)
Paid about 160k of Hilton points for $3000 of hotels (1.87cents a point)
Paid about $600 out of pocket for rental cars (getting those on points is worthless)
So at the end of the day I got around $5500 for free. Most of those points were acquired free on bonuses for spending that I would have already done --- I just spent smartly when going to acquire the bonus. I think the Citi points were a bonus from putting a down payment on my truck for instance.
Credit is wonderful if used correctly. Without getting into a masters class on it, I'm getting on average 3-10% back on most purchases, have no liability if my card is compromised, get upgraded seats in planes, airport lounge access, free bags, purchase protections, trip planning, return and warranty protections, cell phone insurance, and a host of other benefits. If I didn't believe in the travel aspect I'd at minimum be getting 2% cashback compared to using cash or a debit card and 2% is 2%. Travel cards work best for me because I travel for work and can stack my work's spending on there and sometimes triple my intake of points for free.
We only have one real credit card, all others are store cards, Amazon and Sam's. It is a cash back that we use often enough to keep active and make a little bonus once in a while. Usually pay it off every month. Everyone needs to have at least one CC for safe buying, your debt card doesn't give you the protection a real CC does.
I have three credit cards,,,
I use my Cabela's MC for almost every purchase,,,
Those Cabela Bucks have added up nicely for two "free" firearms.
The other two I keep for emergencies.
In order to keep them from being cancelled on me,,,
I use one to auto-pay my cell phone bill,,,
The other auto-pays my NetFlix bill.
I've never had any notice of a terms change,,,
Maybe that's the reason.
Aarond
.
I use my Cabela's MC for almost every purchase,,,
Those Cabela Bucks have added up nicely for two "free" firearms.
The other two I keep for emergencies.
In order to keep them from being cancelled on me,,,
I use one to auto-pay my cell phone bill,,,
The other auto-pays my NetFlix bill.
I've never had any notice of a terms change,,,
Maybe that's the reason.
Aarond
.
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