Like anyone in this game, I apply for far more credit cards than “normal” people do. All in the pursuit of points. Granted that I don’t always use every card that I apply for on a regular basis, there are still some that I do introduce to my wallet for regular use. The best advice I could offer anyone, is to lower your cash advance allowable to as low as the particular credit card issuer will allow. I called one such issuer earlier this weekend, and when I got my “credit limit” and “cash advance limit”, I balked, so, even though it wasn’t the point of the call, I asked the agent to drop my cash advance limit to just $100. I think that’s still too high, but I thought, hey, what’s the probability that I’m going to spend small dollars with my Barclay’s US Airways card (which will turn into an Aviator card).
Well, after seeing Chasing the Points’ post, I’m thinking I need to step it up a notch and just drop my available cash advance balances on any cards that I use to $0 or as close to it as possible! I use credit whenever I can, so to think that I might be charged a cash advance fee at Jamba Juice, makes me think, that the risk is just not worth taking.
So the message really is: Lower your cash advance limit to the lowest the credit card issuer will allow you to lower it to. Don’t do it tomorrow, do it today.
H/T Chasing the Points
That’s interesting you got them to reduce your cash advance on the U.S. Airways card. I’ve called a few times and have gotten the same response, that the cash advance limit and credit line are tied together, so they couldn’t reduce it without reducing the whole credit line.
@Jonathan, might’ve been the luck of the draw… I’ve been told random minimums for cash advance limits before.
I agree that it’s good to get your cash advance limits as low as possible, but there was a bit of confusion in the story about Jamba Juice cards. They were purchased at the mall service desk, not at the Jamba Juice store. Still wouldn’t have expected them to be a cash advance, but this is more of an unusual situation than just buying something at a shop and having it randomly be processed as a cash advance.
@Jamie – Thanks for the clarification, I think I had missed that it was purchasing the gift cards rather than the juice. Still, that’s a huge concern for folks that do buy mall gift cards.
Here’s the link to travel with grant’s original story. It’s worth a read.
http://travelwithgrant.boardingarea.com/2015/05/08/guest-post-macerich-visa-gift-card-purchases-posting-as-a-cash-advance/
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