Amex: Negative balance reporting to CR

[PointLager]

Hello everyone

I have an Amex balance i would like to pay off before the statement closes but I may get a merchant credit.

I would like to get a $0 balance reported this cycle and am wondering how Amex reports negative balances. I vaguely recall that they dont report anything if the balance is negative. Is this the case?

Thsnks

[ojefferyo]

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@PointLager wrote:
Hello everyone

I have an Amex balance i would like to pay off before the statement closes but I may get a merchant credit.

I would like to get a $0 balance reported this cycle and am wondering how Amex reports negative balances. I vaguely recall that they dont report anything if the balance is negative. Is this the case?

Thsnks

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They report $0 balance, I don't know of any lender that actually does report a negative balance and even if they do there's no harm.

[PointLager]

That would be fine. I'm more worried about not having anything reported because I had a higher than normal balance print last month.

[ojefferyo]

Something will always be reported.

[PointLager]

Amex told
Me that as long as the credit comes in before Midnight or closing that it will be reflected on the statement. How realistic are after hours merchant credits?

I guess I also have until midnight of the close date to make a pull payment from Amex website.

[Anonymous]

Because of the way the cash back works, my SimplyCash has hit the statement close with a negative balance multiple times. It has always just reported zero.

[UncleB]

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@PointLager wrote:
Amex told
Me that as long as the credit comes in before Midnight or closing that it will be reflected on the statement. How realistic are after hours merchant credits?

I guess I also have until midnight of the close date to make a pull payment from Amex website.

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Unless something has changed, I don't believe a credit will appear online outside of nightly batch processing (unlike new charges, which usually show up as 'Pending' right away).  In other words, if you're down to the 'wire', you won't know if the credit has processed until after it's too late to make a payment.

If it were me I would simply pay the bill, and take the credit on the next statement (or end up with a credit balance this statement). 

That being said, if the credit is large and you are certain it's on its way, give Amex a call.  My grandmother used to be really bad with returning things she purchased off QVC (like, several times each month) and she would simply manually figure how much she owed Amex (after returns) and call them to tell them how much she was sending, and that a credit was coming.  YMMV, but at least in her case they were fine with it (they would 'note the account'), possibly due to her length of time as a card member.  I have no idea if this looked 'negative' to their computers - she honestly didn't care - but her card never stopped working. 

Again, really big YMMV, and I would call them for sure if there's a chance you'll have a balance carry over to the next statement, since technically that's against the terms (I'm assuming we're talking about a charge card here).  They tend to be easy to work with on stuff like this, at least they have been in the past.