I see. Well, they did claw the points back, but only the amount that I earned by making the travel purchase. I don't sweat about it though, since it's not that much relative to the amount of points used to redeem the travel purchase. That kind of clawback is fair as far as i'm concerned.

Had my Google wallet shutdown after 6 weeks, after cashing about $6000 of OneVanilla VGC from CVS and a few MGC from OfficeDepot with zero fee, including $4000 the week leading to the shutdown. Was nice while it lasted. My husband still has his Google wallet, but it takes 2 to play this game. Have not tried to open another google wallet. USPS still works fine for me. The postal employee I saw today is an MS'er herself, We exchanged tips about which stores still accept credit cards for buying GCs. LOL

Similar thing happened to me with Barclay about a decade ago. I cashed 0%, no balance-transfer-fee on all my credit cards - about $150,000 worth. Put them in money market accounts earning 5% + . Those were the days !

Barclay did a review, found all my cards maxed out, and shut down all my cards. No other creditor even blinked.

I recently applied for the A+. They instantly denied me, without even checking my credit. I called recon and was approved for the A+. Already met minimum spend and cashed the 40,000 points (alas, not 50,000, missed that by a week).

I do have one card that's maxed out - $6000 Discover opened in august. 0% balance transfer offer, no fee. It caused my credit score to drop about 40 points. All the other cards get paid in full each month. I still have an excellent score, though (760-790 out of 850 depending on which bureau/scoring model). Hope Barclay doesn't shut me down a second time, though. Maybe I should pay down that Discover just a tiny bit more than the minimum - currently planning on paying it in full last month only.

Care to share how you recon it to be approved when the bank instantly denied you?

I did the A+ application online on a tuesday, and got instant denial, with a message telling me a letter would come in the mail to explain the reasons.

I called recon the next day . CSR told me I was denied due to "unsatisfactory previous relationship" a long time ago. I requested she reconsider. She then pulled my credit, and I was instantly approved during the review over the phone, with a $20k credit line.

The denial letter arrived the following tuesday, and stated that credit was not pulled. I don't remember exactly the wording on it - not sure if I scanned and kept a copy, but for sure I shredded the original .

The actual card arrived one week after that. The day after, the 50,000 bonus offer was announced. No luck pleading by secure message to be upgraded to that .

My initial spending was a little over $3000, including about $500 of travel charges. The miles posted immediately after the purchase threshold was met, before the first statement closed. I redeemed the points instantly towards the travel purchase, again before first statement closed. I have never seen any other issuer post rewards so quickly - kudos to Barclay.

At Mad.. just get a credit increase at D. No need to pay down if you can increase CL.

Yes but that will be another credit pull, and they won't do it for at least 3 or 6 months of the account being open, I forget which.

According to the Amex site, my Experian FICO dropped from 849 out of 850 in April (almost perfect score - my Vantage score was 990 last year also ;)), to 767 now. Lots of inquiries and new accounts. And that one Discover account at 98% balance is probably responsible for half of the score drop. Waiting for Citigold bonus to post to withdraw some funds and pay down the Discover some more.

Thank you for sharing. So at Barclays a credit analyst could override the denial generated by the system on "unsatisfactory previous relationship". I suppose if there is no discharge or anything in that nature, after so much time has passed, it is fair for Barclays to judge your credit worthyness based on the current information, i.e. the fresh credit report. Kudo to them. Chase seems to be the only other bank that would reconsider after a couple years.

Right, there was not anything negative on my credit report for the last decade (and the only time there ever was in my life, in the preceding decade, I ended up suing both a creditor and credit bureau over FDCPA violations which didn't end well for them).

I hope Barclay won't shut me down again. I expect my credit score will go back up after that Discover is paid down/off. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have bothered with the small $6k balance transfer, just had a hard time turning down free money given no BT fee, even though interest rates are very low right now.

Glad to see another confirmation that other creditors didn't care. Now it'd be interesting to find out why Barclay does it. Is it really because they're so much more risk intolerant than others, which I doubt, or is it because when they looked at out accounts they saw a whole bunch of MS? (do you buy GCs?)

Still curious what's the best way to cash out the reward points as you go, on the card like A+. Seems like with so much uncertainty, it wouldn't be wise to have too many points at any time. When Barclay shut me down, I lost points. Luckily only $15 worth. Buying refundable hotel rooms and then getting credit back sounds too risky to me if you do it much. How do you cash out, if you don't mind?

When they shut me down a decade ago, I was not buying any GCs. I had 2 cards with Barclay. One with a 0% offer that I maxed out, and another that was a flat cashback card which I used for literally all my spending. I found out that Barclay shut me down when a charge was declined at Safeway paying for groceries. Ended up paying with a debit card that day. The shut down letter didn't arrive until a week later. No advance notice whatsoever.

I lost about $200 in cashback as I recall. I also suffered some fees with some autopay from utilities that were declined on the due date.

Even though they closed my accounts, the card that was maxed out still had the 0% offer, and I didn't pay it in full until a year later.

I actually pleaded my case with a banker at Barclay on the phone and explained what I have done with all the 0% balance transfers on all my cards, and that the money was still in FDIC accounts earning interest.

He could clearly see that there were no late payments on any account in my credit report. But I was deemed to risky for them. They wouldn't even keep my regular spending card open, which was getting paid in full each month. Guess they didn't care for the swipe fees.

I don't know exactly what Barclay is looking for these days in terms of shutdown, but a decade ago they were definitely much more risk intolerant than other creditors.

Even if you cash out, the issuers can always claw back points later and give you negative point balances, like Amex has been known to do to some people, so redeeming early may not necessarily save you.

On the A+, the way I cashed out was that I booked a $500 flight (one way ticket CDG-SGN on VN/AF) as part of my initial $3000 minimum spend. Points posted and I was able to redeem about $450 towards it. The amount on the first due bill is actually about $2600, less than the minimum spend, due to having cashed out before first statement closed. I may charge a little more on my A+ during the upcoming trip so I can redeem towards that flight in full - I still have some points to redeem, but below the minimum threshold for redemption.

@madbrain Great feedback, thank you for that. Does look like they care very much about those balances, good to know. When I applied later for their Frontier card, I got an instant denial, and then a letter saying that due to negative performance on my previous card (referring to A+), they can't approve this one, without even checking credit. I called the recon line and asked what "negative performance" they have in mind, because I paid off my A+ on time with no glitches in the history whatsoever. The rep said it's just wording. Negative performance can mean anything, as long as there are reasons to shut down an account. She did offer to pull credit and reconsider the application but I declined since I don't care about Frontier points that much and need to start working on reducing the 20+ inquiries in my credit report just this year lol

Sorry to hear this, however, leaving a high balance on your CC doesn't shut you down, in fact the CC company likes that since they are now making money on you. Something else triggered them to close your account. It seems that some CC companies are more willing to close accounts then others.

How were you paying down the charges? Some weird bill pay from WM, or through the A+ online account, asking to take it from your bank? I've done what you do a lot and no issues so far. I also don't care if it's shut down, as I was going to close it anyway. A+ is worthless to me without MS capability.

Cash it out exactly as you just described. Nothing difficult about it, very straightforward method and scaleable.

The dangers might be in how you MS, not the volume. I heard some people used to load some prepaid cards like Buxx...or whatever is around these days, or doing rent/mortgage payments.

Not true for Barclay . They definitely care about high balances vs limits on your other cards, and did shut me down for that very reason a decade back - read my posts above. They told me as much on the phone this was the reason.

Also, I found an OCR scan of the letter they sent me on Feb 29, 2008 . Here is an excerpt :

This letter is in reference to your EmigrantDirect Platinum MasterCard® account issued by Barclays Bank
Delaware.
We have recently reviewed your account history. Asa result, we requested additional information about your
credit from an independent consumer credit-reporting agency. Effective immediately, we must close your
account for the following reasons:
• Balances Too High On Revolving Accounts
• Rapid Increase In Credit Card Debt
Please destroy all credit cards and convenience checks associated with this account. You are still responsible
for paying the outstanding balance, plus any interest and fees. You will continue to receive billing statements
until the balance, plus any interest and fees, is paid off.
TRANS UNION CORPORATION provided us with information that in whole or in part influenced our decision.
The reporting agency played no part in our decision other than providing us with the credit information, and is
unable to supply specific reasons why we have taken this action. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, you
have a right to know the information provided to us.

This is an excellent data point regarding the management of the enormous credit lines that people in our hobby often have. Our behavior mimics a desperate grab for credit by a person in financial crisis. Your quote is a timely reminder to actively manage our posting balances, even if they are paid in full by the due date.

Is it best practice then to pay as much of the balance before the closing date?

Is it better to have a small balance or zero balance when the statement closes?

Yes and yes.

There is no single best answer. Actually, if you have a $0 balance on every statement due to paying it in full before the closing date, your FICO score will lower will be reduced because the scoring models will count the account as inactive. Thus, it's better to have a small but non-zero balance on your statement if you want to maximize your score.

I forget how long it takes for an account to be considered "dormant" - I think 6 to 12 months. If the account is in dormant status, the credit score algorithm may not count the available credit limit on the account anymore - ie. only the balances relative to limits on active accounts are counted. Having a low balance on every statement on every single credit account you have - would result in a higher score as they would all be considered active, and this builds up your positive repayment history.

I don't work for FICO, but I had an Experian FICO of 849 out of 850 very recently before starting applying for cards massively and maxing some. I'm pretty sure I have cracked the code with how the algorithm works over time. Now it has dropped massively to 767 even without a single negative - just a whole bunch of inquiries and new credit accounts.

New accounts might account for 15 points, and you'll get those points back within a few months. The damage to your score is the maxed out cards. Although I would suspect something else - maybe you paid off an auto loan or mortgage? That will also drop your score, possibly 20-30 points. Anyway, if you pay off the maxed cards you'll get the the points due to that back when the cards report again.

Hey madbrain, does having a card as inactive one month because of $0 balance impact your score, or does that only happen once it's considered dormant? That is, is the goal to keep every account active every single month, or merely ensure that no account ever becomes dormant?

P.S. what do you think would've gotten you that last point to 850? :P

I'm sorry, but I remain skeptical. My Barclay CL was only 6k, the only CC with the bank, while I have multiple CC's with other banks, with CL's over 30k, who, as madbrain put it, didn't even blink. although they'd be at a much higher risk if I went on a ruthless shopping spree. There must be something about Barclay. Just like Flightnurse said, I thought the CC companies liked high balances, which is why I concluded my shutdown was due to the MS they found on the card. But madbrain's shutdown didn't have MS, so who knows at this point. Without additional data points from folks in the same situation, it's all too speculative.

Another factor that I thought might have contributed to the shutdown is cycling the CL. Since my A+ CL was low, I had to pay and load a few times, but not too bad, not more than 2-3 times per statement. Not sure if that mattered. Wish the managers at Barclay I got to talk to just said it as it is : )

I've paid A+ through Barclay's payment portal to withdraw from my bank accounts, three to be precise. I don't care about A+ or its comparable CC's if I can't MS either, but that's the thing, I don't want them to be shut down precisely because I want to MS on them.

Good to know you've been doing the "hotel trick" without issues. My gut feeling is screaming "proceed with caution" with such practice, call it "noob irrational exuberance" :D

Nope, no auto loan or mortgage was paid off. They are at 1.79% fixed 7 year and 3.375% fixed 30 years respectively, not much point in paying them off, though I'm still prepaying the mortgage a bit each month to pay it in 15.

I only have a single card maxed out, the Discover with its $6K CL due to 0% BT offer. My Ink+ also statement also closed with $4400 out of $5000 last week, pretty closed to maxed out. But that one will be getting paid in full, I was trying to meet the minimum spend - will just take another statement to get the points. Most other cards have much larger credit lines. My CSP and CSR opened in June and August respectively each have over $30k limits and near 0 balances (minimum spends already met). Overall debt to limit on all cards is still only about 10%.

To clarify, most of my non-Barclay CCs were at >95% balance to limit ratio when Barclay shut me down. I took all those 0% balance transfer offers around the same time. So at least in my case, it did look like someone in a financial crisis and using up all their credit.

What does the letter you received from Barclay about the shutdown say ?

I believe the score is only impacted once an account is considered dormant. One or two months at $0 balance won't impact it. But you will want to at least make one charge per year on each account, and let that charge show on your statement, to keep the account from being considered dormant. This goes for both FICO but also for the creditors themselves, who might close your account after it's unused for too long. I had a Citi Sears card closed after 4 consecutive years of inactivity. No big loss. I had only applied for the card to get a one-time 10% discount on a large appliance, and never used it again. If I ever want to buy another large appliance from Sears, I will probably just apply for it again.

Really can't say, I don't have it narrowed down that close. I did have a perfect 990 on VantageScore 2.0 the year before, though.

Citi cards closures
 

I had several Citi cards closed 2 weeks ago, only got letters from Executive Response Unit today for each of the closed cards. Basically it is a form letter stating they can close the cards at any time. The letters did NOT state any reason.

Is there anyway to get the decision reversed, at the very least get the paid annual fees refunded? AA exec and Prestige cards both charge hefty fees.

Thanks

@ORD

How long ago did you pay the annual fees ? If recently, you should be able to get them refunded.

Also, did you forfeit any points/miles ? If so, I would go to CFPB to get them back.

A couple of them within 6 months. Thanks for the CFPB tip.

Funny thing is Citi left 2 of my cards open, one Costco card I actively use recently, the other AA card with 0 balance. BTW all the closed cards carried a zero balance for at about 1 to 2 months before the closure.

What's the general safe guideline for Chase with regards to MS? How much is acceptable? Beyond what do you consider risky?

All your Citi cards will be closed soon. That's what happened to me.

What's the algorithm? Please share with everyone.

I also had 3 cards shut down; left only the Costco card for which I have not yet used.

What do you think were factors in the shutdown? Did you do much MS on the cards? WM billpay? MO deposit in Citi checking?

I hear you, but no one else shut you down, although they saw exactly the same behavior. I'm in the same situation. And nobody else shut me down either, at least YET (knock on wood : ) ). In fact I'd be much much more of a risk to other creditors due to higher CL's and number of CC's. That suggests to me that while you can be somewhat cowboyish with your spending behavior, Barclay is an exception to the rule and are quite a bit more sensitive to high balances than others.

I already threw away the original shutdown letter, but here's the one I got when applying to Frontier, with the reference to the shut down A+. That "negative performance" can be any reason why they shut you down, according to manager I talked to:

I would hardly use something that happened 8yrs ago as a current data point. I have seen CL decreased because of high balances, but never seen an account closed because of it.

I used Google Wallet for about 2 months before I was shutdown. I was doing Vanillas from CVS and Mastercards from OM and grocery stores. It was great for the 200s. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

How much were you doing a month?

no. they will stonewall you with their b.s. "we can do whatever we want for whatever reason we want" excuse.

Would also like to know.

I don't normally MS aside from some Plastiq payments, but, I've been trying to take advantage of a Citi bonus (2 extra Citi TYP's per dollar on all spend up to 35K bonus points for 6 months). I'm trying to spend the entire $17,500 needed to max it out. I've been putting one $2000-ish charge from CVS and 2 $500-ish charges from Walgreens per month along with some organic spend each month.

Trying to figure out what the chances of them shutting me down over this (18 year relationship with Citi)? I don't do any billpays at all to the account, I always pay it off with my normal bank account.

Thanks!