My American Express Blue Cash Preferred Card account managers are some of the most conservative in all of my experience with the many credit cards I've had over the years. Not only are they extremely reticent to increase my credit limit (well that's to be expected though isn't it) but I occasionally get these emails with the title formatted just like the title of this post. And then you read the email and you find out that the reason there giving you this dire warning is because you dared to come within $500 of your credit limit. Well with a $1,000 credit limit, it's almost impossible to not come within $500 of that. So I've gotten these often. And they're always irritating.
Now they've never actually denied any charges I've tried to make even if I've racked up charges close to near $900 but it's just the thought. And the thing that triggered it this time wasn't even an actual charge. It was a gas station $175 hold that they place when you enter the card at the pump. The actual charge for the gas was about 18 bucks added to a balance on the card of about $495. My payment date is coming up and I always pay the full statement charge religiously. So within a few days, it's slated to be knocked down a good $400. And, just last month I had just placed it back on auto pay. All this for a card that charges me $95 a year.
This was fine when I was using this as my primary grocery shopping card before I got my EBT. I easily made well over $95 a year in Rewards because of the 6% back on groceries. But this card, though it has a decent cash back percentage on groceries, and a fairly okay 3% back on streaming services and gas, has nothing otherwise. My Capital One Savor MasterCard, on the other hand, has a $3,000 credit limit, 3% back on streaming services, gas and groceries, 6% on travel, and 8% on travel booked through their travel site, whatever that might be. But, importantly, they also offer 1% back on everything else, and, no annual fee.
So I took this little exclamation mark in my email today and tacked it up in this post as my touchstone of a new Mini V.
That's right, it's burn, baby, burn time for the Old Spartan.
Why was I so loyal to the dude? Because the card says member since 85? That's bullshit anyway we know that. By 1986 I had some guido screaming at me on my expensive Sony landline phone with built-in answering machine (which I proly bought with the Amex card) as I sat in my East Providence apartment questioning my manhood because I couldn't pay my charge card bill. I called him out and dared him to tell me where he was and he told me he was in New Jersey and I was this close to hopping into my 1981 Ford Escort and driving on down Route 95 to kick his ass. Does Amex think I forgot this?
So I made the initial motions already. The buttons are pressed. The keys have been entered into the keyholes. The sequence has begun. It's time for the countdown. I just took the card off of all of its recurring accounts like Xfinity, Express Scripts, and Amazon. I left it on Peacock but that's because I'm canceling it before the end of the month anyway, I only rejoined Peacock this month in order to snag the SNL 50th Anniversary specials. I took the card off auto pay of course.
I think I'll make one tiny adjustment payment to get it aligned perfectly so that I will be able to make one final charge to the card to bring it to roughly around $ 990 or so. Gee, what could that be?
The balance right now is $518. The charge I want to make is about $514. So I have to adjust accordingly to avoid going over so I'll make a payment of about $50 or so. Gee what would this charge that I want to make be? I wonder?
Sorry American Express, and yes I'm pretty sure that you will be very aggressive in trying to collect on me. Sadly though, you will very well find out how judgment proof I really am. Meanwhile, on May 22nd, I'll think of you. Maybe I'll bring your by-then dead card with me on my little scandalously-free "Epic" journey.