American Express used to make it really easy to transfer credit between cards online. They took away the feature several years ago, then brought it back but hid it. It’s come and go a few times.
It’s currently available and easy to find. This can be really useful, for instance:
- You may want more credit on a card temporarily to make large purchases. It’s better to have a higher credit line that covers your purchases than to max out your credit and then pay it off (multiple times) mid-cycle. And that lets you make big purchases without split tender transactions (getting the merchants to split up a purchase across multiple cards).
- You may want to preserve your credit without keeping a card. You transfer the bulk of your credit off of a card that you aren’t going to keep and onto one that you will keep.
When you log into your account, click ‘Profile’ on the top menu bar.
Then choose ‘Manage Credit Limit’
Then select ‘Transfer Available Credit to Another Card’
That will bring you to a screen where you can pick the cards you want to move credit between.
You can even transfer credit between personal cards and business cards.
You can request to have a portion of your available credit transferred between two of your eligible consumer credit cards, between two of your eligible business credit cards or from your eligible consumer credit card to business credit card
They do ask you to update your income during this process, something they didn’t used to do. My advice is to always be honest on this. It’s the best way not to have to be worried about an American Express financial review.
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Boy, wouldn’t it be great if Chase allowed this !!
But this is still very nice … thanks for the post.
@Frank well Chase will generally do it over the phone, just not on the website. (I usually ask them to do it “if it’s easy and doesn’t require them do go through an approval process”)
In my experience, this only works when both the receiving and donating account have been open for 13 months or more.
Dave – that matches with what I am seeing – my cards are currently newer than that and I do not see the option under Manage Credit Limit on my accounts
@Frank, I agree with Gary. I was able to move credit from one card to another on my Chase cards via phone. No questions asked. No credit approvals/check needed. I wonder if other banks make it easy to move credit as well.
@Gary, do you think Amex will do a credit soft or hard pull given they asked for yearly income?
Another data point: yes, both cards do need to be open for a while. I have a new SPG Amex that I wanted to transfer to, but it’s open for less than a year, so the option isn’t there.
Must not be for all accounts – not available on three separate accounts I have access to.
@Charlie and they are all credit cards and not charge cards? This is only available for the former of course, and not for cards without predefined spending limits.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that Amex will only let you transfer once within a pretty long period of time. I was planning on moving credit from two cards into a third. I started with the smaller line I was wanting to move back in like March and then the larger one I tried after kept getting denied. It’s still being denied when I try it about once a month. Amex even finally sent us a copy of one of the forms they send you when you’re under review, saying that if we wanted more credit on the line they would need us to fill it out. I just ignored it and am slowing down my attempts to transfer credit but really want that account to have a higher CL.
@joey – they haven’t done one in the past when i’ve moved credit between accounts
@Gary Delta, Hilton, and SPG cards. Not sure. I haven’t had any changes on those cards in over 12 months either.
@Gary Do you know how low you can go with the credit line one Amex card? I have a Hilton Amex that I rarely use (I only keep it for access to AXON awards), so I’d like to move as much credit off of that one as possible.
I’ve also been able to have Chase re-allocate my credit lines by sending them a secure message.
@Chris used to be $1000 i think
Will they let you do it even if the account is not a year old, till now that seems to have been their policy
Hard pull or no? Still not answered I think…
@Points with a Crew — Ditto here. I guess this is one downside of churning!
I tried doing this with AMEX and they said that there is a 50% chance of a Hard pull – no thx…..not worth it in my book and the risk of a FR. With Chase, just send a secure message – it always worked for me…same with Barclays…Citi?…B of A???
Cool! – I requested over phone and was denied, but this went through instantly.
Wow! This post is a week too late for me. Just went through the pain of a CL transfer with an off shore agent last week. After having me confirm I wanted $7100 moved, he transferred $1800. Then when I called a US based agent, my transfer got blocked as two transfer requests in one day. Love teh American Express incompetence. Was escalated to a CL team (?), which actually did what the first person promised, then asked me to call them at a 1-800 number. Right. Like they hadn’t wasted enough of my time. I logged in to see the proper CL transfer. And all I had to do is wait a week and read your blog Gary. Much less painful.
The info I was given is the “from” card needs to be 13 months old and the “to” card needs to be 90 days old.
8/8: ability is pulled from website now
that was incorrect, was looking at charge card, which is different…
Worked like a charm and showed up instantly online. Thanks!
Not working for me, I don’t have the option.
They must have pulled the ability to do it online, but am doing it via the online chat right now. A little more of a hassle but not too bad
It let me do this once but I can’t do it again. Very strange.
Can we do balance transfer from my friends account to mine. If so which credit company is best to do it