AmEx started taking Credit Limit Enhancement requests from 18th Jan 2021

As you might know, American Express India has been very cautious when it comes to Credit Limit Enhancements on their cards post Covid-19 pandemic and the credit card issuer kept the requests on hold for almost a year now.

This is because they were generous with the limits previously and maybe don’t want to take too much risk post covid.

However, Amex started taking credit limit enhancement requests from 18th Jan 2021. but, there is a slight twist in this.

Earlier, they used to enhance the limit instantly over the call simply by sharing the updated income orally. Now, you will need to email them the updated financials, post which the review will happen.

How to Request for increase in Credit Limit?

Check out this response from Amex chat rep. It might take upto ~7 days for them to process the request.

The Issue

The issue with this kind of requests is that you will not know how much limit is being offered to you before you choose to take it or not.

For ex, they may offer you limit enhancment of 1000 just like how I got sometime back and once its updated you’ll need to wait for next 6 months to request again.

Best Practices

I wouldn’t suggest to request for a limit enhancement if the spends are too low on the card account, as they usually factor in both the spends & ITR to decide the new limit.

Final Thoughts

This new method doesn’t make any sense actually because the updated financials would be for the period FY 2019-20, which is not very much affected by pandemic.

But, maybe their idea is to slow down the requests so as to reduce the potential risk. Surprising thing is how HDFC Affords agressive limit enhancement even during pandemic!

Anyway, something is better than nothing. Do let us know how these requests turns out for you. I’ll share my experience in a week time, stay tuned!