8.6 Available credit on your credit card

It is important to keep track of how much of your credit limit you are currently using so that you know how much credit you have available to use for other transactions. If you don’t keep track of your available credit, you are more likely to go over your credit limit and incur penalty fees.

Fortunately, there are a number of ways that you can find out how much credit you have available on your credit card account. However, the amount of information you receive should be the same regardless of the method used to present it to you.

There should be a section somewhere on your paper statement and online banking page titled ‘Credit Limit’ which will tell you your current credit limit, how much credit you have available to you, your cash limit and how much of your cash limit you have available.

Your cash limit will be part of your overall credit limit and not an additional amount of credit. If you have a credit limit of £1,000 and a cash limit of £500, your overall limit will be £1,000 and if you use your full cash allowance you would have £500 worth of credit left on your card which couldn’t be used on cash advances.

You will also be able to find out this information by ringing your credit card company’s customer service centre. Some credit card providers will tell provide you with your credit card via an automated system as soon as you have logged into the telephone banking service by following the prompts on the phone, providing you have this service set up.

The amount of available credit on your credit card account can be affected by any recent transactions you have made that haven’t be carried out in time to make that particular month’s statement.

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