Ooops

I've just maxed out my credit card.

I've just booked (and paid for) our flights to and from India (woo-hoo!!), but realised as soon as I'd finalised payment that this would exceed the credit limit of the card that I processed them on.

Now, I am an excellent credit card user.  I always pay my card off in full on or before the due date. If you like, that's the equivalent of earning 19% interest on my money - much better than any savings account will give me. The card companies don't make any money off me, although they do make plenty off the merchants who accept my cards.

I've maxed out this card (Amex) once before, which was a monumental pain in the arse, and required all sorts of begging and organising to make sure they didn't decline any of the regular scheduled payments until they processed the cash payment.

This time, I immediately BPay'd a wad of cash across, except of course, that will take overnight to hit. (BPay is a system that allows you to pay bills from any bank in the country to any registered payee. The payments can be scheduled several months in advance if you want. It's brilliant, simple, and apparently nothing like it is available in the States.) I also jumped onto the Amex site and paid the outstanding balance (the maximum I could pay), given at least that payment should be recognised immediately.

So my card limit is $x, and my balance before booking these flights was about $x/3. The flights cost a hair under $x. I have paid two amounts, each a little over $x/4, one of which they've already recognised, the other will go through tonight. How good are you with fractions?

Starting bal + flights - pmt received already >? limit OR  x (⅓ + 1 - ¼) - 1x > 0?

And the answer is yes. I will exceed my limit by a little over $200 after all the rounding, for about ten hours. Which might be just enough for them to decline which ever of the flight payments hasn't processed yet. Gnarrrggh.

So I've rung Amex, and they've talked to the credit department, but they can't tell me one way or another whether one of them will bounce. Hopefully, they'll re-present it when the BPay'd payment comes through (and charge me some silly amount for the privilege). 'Cos I'll be an airplane when it bounces otherwise, and not in a position to do terribly much about it at that point.

On the up side, I'll be on a plane tomorrow, and (assuming the flights don't get screwed up due to bouncy payments), I'll be on a plane to India January next year too!