Increase The Limit On Your American Express Card By Up To 3 Times It’s Starting Amount

If you don’t have a long credit history one thing you’ll notice is that it’s hard to get credit cards with large credit limits. In most cases this is not an issue because you can simply pay off the card early and then reuse the limit for that month. Unfortunately some cards require a minimum credit limit to be approved (e.g World MasterCard’s have a $5,000 minimum limit).

Lenders usually don’t want to be the first ones to extend you a large credit limit, as it’s an increased risk for them. Whereas if they see you already have high limits they are more likely to give you an equally large limit as they can see you haven’t abused it.

American Express is one issuer that’s not afraid of giving larger limits, possibly because they charge merchants more to process their cards and thus make higher profit margins and can tolerate greater risks. Whatever the case they usually offer high credit limits.

Increasing your credit limit can also help you to have a lower overall credit utilization (assuming you spend the same amount), as the amount of total credit you have available is increased. This is an important scoring factor for the FICO score. Although this positive can easily be matched by simply paying your credit cards before the statement posts to reduce the amount of debt you have that is reported to the credit bureaus.

This guide is meant for people who can use credit responsibly.

The interest rates on most American Express cards are quite high, if you often find yourself with maxed out credit cards that aren’t paid off within the grace period then this guide is NOT for you.

The best thing about American Express is that it’s easy to get your credit limit approved by up to 200% of it’s current limit. For example, if you’re limit is $1,000 you can get it increased to $3,000. Below is our short guide to getting this increase:

Rules For American Express Credit Limit Increases:

  • You must wait a minimum of 60 days after a card is opened before requesting a credit limit increase from American Express, unless you have another American Express issued credit card that has been open for at least six months
  • You must wait a period of six months in between credit limit increases from American Express. This applies across all of your American Express cards.
  • If you’re denied, you must wait 90 days before applying for an increase again
  • If you successfully receive a credit limit increase you can apply for another one after six months. In general this is much more difficult to receive than the first increase unless your income has gone up significantly.

Tips For Receiving A Credit Limit Increase:

  • Decrease the amount of debt you have with other credit card issuers. Make sure your credit cards off before the statement posts, this way the reported balance will be 0. A common denial reason

How To Request The Credit Limit Increase

  1. Call the number on the back of your card and follow the prompts. Requesting a credit limit increase is usually button 3 or 4 after calling the initial number. OR
  2. Online:
    1. Log into your American Express account
    2. Click profile & preferences
    3. Click more options
    4. Under account management click “manage credit limit”
    5. Click start then follow the prompts

When requesting the increase, make sure you request a limit that is three times your opening limit if you want to increase your limit by the maximum allowed. For example, if American Express gave you a limit of $3,000 request a limit of $9,000.

What To Do If You’re Denied:

If you’re denied, it’s not the end of the world. After all it was only a soft inquiry and you had nothing to lose. American Express is required to send you a letter of adverse action notice when this happens, this will list the reasons as to why you were denied for the credit limit increase along with any credit score they used in the decision.

Try to improve on the reasons they gave you for denial if possible (see our tips section) and then wait 90 days before trying again.

Don’t believe this works?

Why not read over 73 pages of success stories (mixed with some failures as well, but nobody really fails as you have nothing to lose) in this myFICO forum thread.

You can find out if other card issuers do a soft or hard pull by clicking here.

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Finch
Finch (@guest_1797282)
February 13, 2024 17:48

started with only $6k, and requested $18k, instant approval.

raekwon
raekwon (@guest_1721615)
October 23, 2023 23:09

“You must wait a period of six months in between credit limit increases from American Express. This applies across all of your American Express cards.”

If this still applies, it appears to not apply across business and personal cards. Received an (unsolicited) increase on my BCP last month. Requested a 3x increase on my business SimplyCash Plus today and was approved instantly.

M
M (@guest_1695710)
September 16, 2023 19:28

Applied through the website for Hilton/BCP and received this message: Your request for a Credit Limit increase has been submitted. You will receive a written response within 7 – 10 days.

Minutes later, received an email declining the request. 800+ score and $100k spend power on my platinum

M
M (@guest_1695707)
September 16, 2023 19:19

Got this: Your request for a Credit Limit increase has been submitted. You will receive a written response within 7 – 10 days.

Michael
Michael (@guest_1662902)
July 31, 2023 03:53

I have 3 cards of amex: Cash Magnet, Blue Cash and Everyday.. all the non-AF versions

In the spring I did the 3x on my cash magnet from 5k to 15k – exactly 3x… and the other 2 cards I left that their 1k original CLs that’s been like that for a few years…

Now, i just passed the 180 mark, so I did the 3X again, but this time I chose my Blue Cash and it was bumped 3x from 1k to 3k… ok that’s fine and what i expected…. but… it seems that amex ALSO bumped my Everyday card from 1k to 3k as well – despite me not asking for it (i only did the 3x cli request on my Blue Cash).

I double checked my Cash Magnet (which I got the 3x from 5k to 15k earlier this year) to see if perhaps they reallocated some of that credit and that’s how the Everyday card was bumped – nope.. it’s still 15k

So.. it looks like they truly did bump both of my 1k cards to 3k with the same request today.

FX
FX (@guest_1405398)
July 6, 2022 16:17

I had 9k to start asked for 25k I was scared to ask for the full three times amount.(rejection is cruel) Approved online using your link. Asked for credit increase 6 months before this but only asked for 2k increase. Paid off all my cards except Discover card with 11k balance and have a 770 on Experian and 6% utilization

HH
HH (@guest_1399409)
June 23, 2022 18:51

started with 15k, asked for 30k today online (just to be safe since I carry a low balance), and was instantly approved! setting a reminder to do it again in 6 months

WhatWeTacoBoutWhenWeTacoBoutLove
WhatWeTacoBoutWhenWeTacoBoutLove (@guest_1398656)
June 22, 2022 10:05

Received 3x limit increase on Blue Cash Preferred ($5k to $15k) about 100 days after opening.

EdwardDX
EdwardDX (@guest_1398546)
June 21, 2022 22:32

For the webpage, the new link is https://global.americanexpress.com/lending/line-increase/request. I followed the recommendation and went from 5k to 15k, instantly approved. Utilization of amex card was close to 0, and my credit was a little below 700.

MisterBill
MisterBill (@guest_1355013)
March 29, 2022 00:23

First, they seem to have moved the link to request a CLI and I could not find the new link. However, I entered “how to request a credit limit increase” in the chatbot, and it provided a link.

That said, I requested an increase from 6.3k to 18.9k following the 3x recommendation, and it said “In order for us to complete our review, please provide the three most recent months of consecutive bank statements from your primary bank account(s) by directly connecting your bank account or by manually attaching them in PDF format:” I don’t want to do that. I declined to submit it and exited, figured I’d try a lower request, but it appears to have submitted it anyway, so we’ll see what happens. If they decline any increase, I’ll just move some of the credit line from a different card. Then they sent email asking for it, so it seems like they will not be processing it unless I send the info. Update — just reallocated $3700 from another lightly used card to this one/ It took effect instantly, and I now have a $10k limit, so my credit usage should drop to a reasonable level next month.

I don’t really NEED the increase on this card, but I had a no-fee Plan It offer on the card and ended up at around 25% of the credit limit, which dropped my credit score. Trying to get the utilization down without pre-paying the Plan It, even thought I don’t really have any need for the extra money.

PS here’s the new link: https://global.americanexpress.com/lending/line-increase/request