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Say my credit card has a limit of $3000 and I need to make a purchase of $10000. If I have the money, can/should I preload my credit card with $10000 and then make the purchase? Or is my purchase still limited to $3000?

My point of using the credit card is for the cash back, not for borrowing money.

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    What are you buying? Could you negotiate a 2-3% discount for paying cash instead of trying to finagle points? They might go for it if it saves them the 2% transaction cost.
    – D Stanley
    Mar 30 at 16:22
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    @DStanley, say a vehicle. I am not sure if the dealers are open to this negotiation.
    – Zuriel
    Mar 30 at 16:26
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    @Zuriel Some dealers will not accept a card for a vehicle purchase due to the large fee they will be charged.
    – mhoran_psprep
    Mar 30 at 16:33
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    @mhoran_psprep Many dealers will accept credit cards for cars, only they will add in their merchant fees to the price, making it a losing proposition. I've heard that this happens for foreign students from China whose parents want to buy them a car, due to capital controls on the Yuan.
    – user71659
    Mar 30 at 21:59
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    Do check the daily spend limit on your card as well. No point having it there if you can't spend it in one hit.
    – Criggie
    Mar 31 at 0:35

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Some people have been able to do this, though I have no idea if there is a limit. Others have found that their card doesn't allow this, so you would have to contact the credit card company to see if they allow this.

Expect that at some point they will return the funds to you if you try this and keep the excess funds on the card before3 making the purchase. You will have to contact the company to see what their timeline is.

You don't want to be hit by the vendor with a declined card charge if you you exceed the limit, or wait a day too long.

You may be able to get a temporary or permanent credit limit increase. I have done this in the past. It is also possible in some cases to split a large payment across multiple cards, but that would be hard to do if you are making the purchase online.

You may get a discount if you pay cash or with a check, that discount can be larger than the cash value of the points.

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  • "at some point" is probably about a year. I've carried credit balances on cards for a while without intervention from the CC provider.
    – Dean MacGregor
    Mar 31 at 11:26
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    "at some point" depends on the card. I've had a credit balance refunded the month after a month ended with a credit balance.
    – blm
    Apr 4 at 19:32

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