I have also be messed over by American Excess. A vendor overcharged me $870.00 for a Bed and Breakfast stay in St. Augustine, Florida. The Powder House Inn to be exact. We went back and forth with correspondence for over 2 months. I proved everything in writing. Guess what, they backed up the vendor.  We have no limit on our cards so I purchased cars and other large ticket items on occasion as well. Never late on any payments etc.

I am in the process of cashing in 570,821 points this week (that's a lot of Home Depot Gift Cards) before I cancel it next week. My average charge is in the area of $4,000 - $10,000 per month (since 1984). I pay $180 per year for the privilege of using their car to buy stuff, I also pay $60 per year to have a card for my lovely wife, plus $50 for each of the cards to accumulate points. (that is $330 per year plus earning one point for every dollar spent). That is over $7,000 paid since 1984.

I am debt free and this will only add to our cash in the bank. Guess what we did before American Excess? Yep, paid cash.  That save us money and saves the vendors 4-5% out of their pockets as well.

American Excess, Hear this, I am done as well. I don't need to pay your fees for the privilege of using your card. I now leave home without it.

Dave

The credit crunch is to blame... Most credit card issuers are cutting down credit lines of their customers, because of the way they use to increase these lines weren't based on solid or accurate guide lines. It was pretty much a free-for-all for anyone with a credit card. It's much easier to cut everyone's limits and then sort it all out, than to attempt to sort through it now and continue to get burned for large amounts in the process. They feel that once all high risk card holders have been identified, they can gradually raise the limits of those that don't fit the profile of a high risk. And if they've decided to forfeit  their card they'll try to lure you back with some type of incentives. It stinks, but it's the world we live in.

TTT   

This is the only way to avoid being taken advantage of by this legalized form of loan sharking.

TTT

Bartman: I agree whole heartedly. I have a simple life since I started paying cash for 90% of my purchases years ago. I did use American Excess for business until I read ab book by Dave Ramsey called total money makeover. It changed my life.

Check it out sometime at Daveramsey.com

Regards,

Dave

Banks are little more than Government sanctioned counterfitters.
They don't actually reach into the vault to hand you someone else's deposited money when you get a loan.
They just type some digits into a computer account and .... ABBRA CADABRA!...they just made money out of thin air and then loan it to you at interest (that you have to pay back with "real" money you had to work to get, none of that computer money they gave you.)  They are allowed to "loan" out up to $9. for every "real" dollar they are holding for someone in deposits.  The real funny thing is: We spend the "loan", the seller deposits the cash in their bank at the end of the day, their bank can now "loan" out $9. more than they could before for every $1. of that deposit too. It's a vicious circle floating the fake money around, and loaning out more and more based on the first original "loan", that was not money at all.
What ticked me off was when "Uncle Ben" at the Fed bailed out his friends by just printing more $ and handing it to them so they could make their Ferrari, and penthouse condo payments when they didn't get the big "payoff" because their counterfit money "loans" didn't get paid back with hard earned dollars. NOW, the dollar I worked for is worth less (worthless?) because the supply and demand numbers have been manipulated due to the "new" money that got added to the pot. Each dollar is now worth less because there are more of them than there was before. It will always be about fractions of 100%.  The more they print, the smaller percentage of the whole pie my dollar represents, and the more of them they want for the stuff I buy because of it.  The big bonus is that these crooks got the cash as it was printed and got to use it before the market adjusted to the new supply number and raised prices accordingly.
I have to stop now, before I get riled up and Dave has to "shush" me again.

i have to rely on one of these as most of what i'm buying now require pay pal..without one, i cant apply pay pal...

I hear ya.  There was a time in my life, when I was younger, I bought into that "credit card status" crud. All it got me was in a hole I couldn't see my way out of for 15yrs.  Cash or money order only now for last decade. If I want it I either buy it, or save for it.  I taught my kids about my bad choices as a young person.  Maybe they won't end up in "voluntary" servitude to some loan shark.