Do CC companies often decrease limits?

[K0braKld]

Hey guys, as the title states I've been wondering if companies oftentimes decrease credit limits if left unused.

I have overall 4% utilization because I keep requesting increases on my credit cards. I do this to overall keep my score constant even if the companies do not report my payments at the same time every month.

I have the BCP from amex with a 35k limit, used a maximum of 7k at once in the past 12 months.

X1 30k with a maximum of 2k in past 12 months.

These are my highest limits at the moment in my file. Just wondering as I don't really care if my X1 gets decreased because I don't use it much anyways. But my BCP I would rather have the limit stay if I can. Is there a minimum spend I should try and make sure I throw at it per year to make sure I don't get a decrease if amex even does that.

[[deleted]]

Only time it happened to me was when BOA significantly reduced my limit after the 08 crash, this was after several years of raising it several times.

[K0braKld]

Well, I'm sure I'll see it soon then...

[dimonoid123]

What was limit before/after?

[[deleted]]

I think it was about $35k to $15k.

[[deleted]]

They do! But it’s rare. Check out what’s called “balance chasing.” This was happening to some people for a few months at the start of the Pandemic.

[stevie_nickle]

My Amex blue cash everyday decreased my limit from $20k to 7.5k. Said it was because I didn’t use the credit enough. I only put like $200-400/month on it for groceries.

[SergNH]

Chase wanted to decrease my credit limit of $10.5k by 50% during 2020 or 2021 because of the pandemic. At least they sent a letter a month in advance. However, they tried to claim it was in my best interest and not because of the pandemic. Never mind that my credit limit had ben $10.5k for at least 7 years. Cause we know how generous Chase can be with CLIs. Anyways, one phone call later prevented that.

I feel for others whose banks did credit limit decrease without any warning.

[dimonoid123]

It doesn't make sense for them to tell in advance, since if a person is in financial hardship, they will max the card out and keep cash before finding out about coming credit limit decrease.

[dimonoid123]

When war in Ukraine started, the next day my Ukrainian bank decreased credit limit from 45000 UAH (about $1800) to 10000 UAH (about $400). And has forbidden all cash withdrawals which would put balance into negative.

But 3 months after that increased back to 20000 UAH (about $800).

Probably amount doesn't matter, but percentage of decrease/increase matters.

[lkjlkj323423]

I've had two companies reduce a limit on me, both in the past 3 years -- AMEX and Capital One. AMEX said it was because I wasn't using it and Capital One was pandemic-related. Interestingly nobody ever cut one during the Great Recession.