Are American Express Relaxing Their Four Credit Card Limit?

One of the application rules for American Express has always been that you can not hold more than four of their credit cards at any one time. You can have as many charge cards as you like, but there has been a hard limit of four credit cards. This rule only applied to credit cards that they issue, not cards issued by other banks running on the American Express payment network (see: full list of American Express third party credit cards).

We’ve recently received a bunch of data points that this is no longer the case:

On the flip side, there are data points that this rule is still being enforced:

What Should You Do With This Information?

Nothing, at the moment it looks like they aren’t enforcing the rule for ~50% of people and are enforcing the rule for the other 50%. Not sure why they are allowing it for some people and not others. This should really only be an issue for people if there are 4 American Express credit cards that you actually want to keep, otherwise just cancel some before applying for another.

Hat tip to US Credit Card Guide for making me aware of this and data points from Frequent Miler as well.
    William Charles
  • On April 1, 2016, 09:45

View Comments (18)

  • fyi the current limit is 6 credit cards. I was at 5 and got approved for a business card a few months ago. When I applied for another business card now, was told that the limit was 6 and needed to cancel one. Took more than one phone call and each time a different agent confirmed that limit. Once I canceled one personal credit card then was immediately approved for the new business card. To be clear, I'm referring to credit cards; I have additional charge cards (business and personal) that were not factors in the limit.

  • had my 5th CC (SPG biz; public 30k offer) in summer/fall 2016; and my 6th CC (simplycash plus; targeted mail offer) in dec 2016.
    holding another 6 charge cards right now. and received another 75k gold biz offer

    don't know why amex being so generous to me

  • Already have 4 non-charge cards. Applied for the Delta personal and gold biz card. Biz was declined, and personal was pending. Called 800-962-7227, the rep said he'd see what he could do, and got me approved for the personal card. He said the credit team/dept. said to cancel a card and then they would reconsider for the biz card. In case it helps anyone, biz card phone number for this card is 800-952-7560.

  • Here's my DP.

    Here's what I currently have:
    Everyday (No fee)
    Blue Cash Preferred
    SPG
    SPG Biz

    Applied for Delta Gold for 50k after 2k spend with $100 statement credit. App went pending on Friday, got an approve email on monday so I now have 5 total Amex cards. I do have PRG and Platinum card but those are charge cards and not credit.

  • I have been approved for 5 cards as of today:
    - Blue Cash Everyday (3 years old)
    - Blue Cash Preferred (12/3/15)
    - SPG Personal (3/4/16)
    - Hilton (approved today after call-in)
    - Delta (approved today after call-in)

  • Applied for the Everyday and went into Pending. Have 2 SPG Business (don't ask), Delta and Lowe's. Called this morning and was approved. Said the only reason it went Pending was because of the 4 card limit, but since I'm such a good customer they approved a 5th "Lending Card".

  • Had the following: BCE, Costco, HHonors (0AF), ED, and Green. Applied for SPG Personal on 03/29/16 and it went into pending. Waited and got an approval email on 03/31/16. This was after getting the Green and ED on 02/22/16.

  • 4 Amex cards until a week ago, applied for one SPG personal and one SPG Biz on Sunday. Automatically approved for SPG personal but went pending for Biz.
    Received a call from an Amex lady this AM offering me to close one card if I wanted SPG Biz. Told them I would call them back as I was late to work and wasn't sure which card I wanted to keep... She left a number for me to call when I am ready.
    They must really want my bizznesss!!

  • nope. got denied today for the hilton no AF because i had 4 cards with them prior to applying. SPG personal and biz, Delta, and Everyday preferred.

  • I had 4 AMEX accounts as of last week (Blue, Platinum, Simply Cash, Hilton). I applied for the SPG Business card and was instantly approved.

    • Platinum is a Charge card and not counted towards the 4 (or5) card limit.

      Golds and Greens are charge cards also.

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