One thing about manufactured spending you need to be careful of is that some banks will charge you cash advance fees for purchasing Gift Cards and other similar “like cash” options. Citi is notorious for this and charges it as a cash advance where ever possible. Other banks are a little kinder, but will charge these fees when they deem it’s necessary.
This can be frustrating because you don’t want to put through a big purchase which might be charge as a cash advance and you also don’t want to put through a little purchase to test the waters as you’ll still have to pay a small fee for doing so (assuming your purchasing a gift card with an activation fee) without earning the large number of points, miles or cash back to off set it.
You can easily avoid cash advance fees, all you need to do is contact your credit card issuer and let them know that you want your cash advance limit set to $0. All card issuers will process this for you, make sure you get a reference number and if possible send a secured message rather than calling to help create a paper trail in the event that there is an issue in the future.
There is one downside to this tactic and that’s some purchases will first be processed as a cash advance and then will later change into a regular purchase. Because your cash advance limit is set to $0, it won’t be able to process the transaction even though it’ll later be coded as a purchase.
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Reducing Your Cash Advance Limit With Barclays
- Call 866-408-4064 (Barclays Credit Department)
- Ask for your cash advance limit to be reduced to $0 or $1
- They’ll then ask you why, use one of the following reasons or make up your own:
- Some banks allow you to fund new checking accounts with a credit card, you want to make sure this is not coded as a cash advance
Other Banks And Their Cash Advance Limits:
- Alliant: Cannot be reduced: 1
- American Express:
Cash advance limit is tied to your credit limit and cannot be lowered(can now be lowered). - Bank of America: Has a minimum cash advance limit of $200
- Capital One: Cannot change your cash advance limit, usually 30% of your credit limit
- Chase: allows a limit of $0 (update 12/31/17: now reports are saying it’s either $100 or $20)
- Citi: allows a limit of $0
- FIA: allows a limit of $0
- TD Bank: Hardcoded to minimum 30% of credit limit (1)
Hat tip to Fat Wallet Finance
Heads up, folks, have I got a PSA for you! My Upromise (Barclays) Mastercard has a cash advance limit of $500, so I figured that if I was worried about whether a transaction might be coded as a cash advance, then I could just make sure that the transaction was for over $500, and I’d be fine. However, the limit was ignored, the transaction wasn’t declined, and I was charged cash advance fees.
The support agent on the telephone said that the limit only applies to certain types of cash advances (eg ATMs) but not others (eg online sportsbooks). In order to get the fees refunded, I had to escalate my case to the next tier of phone support and state that I was willing to file a small claims lawsuit and an FCBA request (and I would’ve followed through).
Fidelity Rewards Visa (Elan Bank) is hard coded 25% of CL and can’t be changed. Just called in to them to inquire about that.
Sofi does not allow it to be changed per my online chat with customer support.
I successfully lowered my cash advance limit on my Citizens Bank card to $0. It seems like most things that can be coded as cash advance with this card are coded as a cash advance, similar to Citi I guess. And while I’m on the topic, I was disappointed to find out one day that there’s a hard-coded limit of 25 transactions per day (resets at midnight) with this card. That seriously doesn’t jive with my mojo!
Called Chase at 18005243880 to request my cash advance limit, currently at $100, for my Freedom Flex be set to 0. Was denied. The person I spoke to said using Venmo would count as a cash advance but not buying gift cards.
Chase’s cash-advance-limit minimum is $100,
CommentingOnDOC.
All of my Chase personal cards are set at $100. You’re right: business cards have a minimum of 5% of credit line. (Mine is 5%.)
Peek
And if your credit line is less than $2,000, the CA limit can be under $100. Case in point, I recently did a reallocation and reduced my old CIC to $1,000. The CA limit dropped to $50.
I was able to message Amex Chat and cancel the Cash Advance feature on all my cards.
William Charles please update this FAQ accordingly.
Done
I called Wells Fargo to try and lower the limit on my Active Cash Visa and BILT Rewards. They said that cash advance limit is 20% of credit limit and that they do not provide an option to lower the limit or disable cash advances entirely. Disappointing.
Can confirm – tried on Bilt Mastercard
I called WF and they told me the exact same thing. I was going to try and use the Active Cash card for new account funding but now I am assuming it won’t work.
US Bank allows you to turn off cash advance (but doesnt allow a reduction if thats what you prefer)
WF CA limit is 20% of the credit limit.
DP: Synchrony doesn’t allow you to change your cash advance limit.