I've gotten used to EQ Scorewatch not having the slightest affect from my Amex charge balances. The new upgraded score does factor in charge card balances.When the new score cut in FICO dropped 9 points but the utlization, counting Amex, was just over 20%. After Amex reported this month, with no other reporting, that utilization dropped to 9% and my score recovered all 9 points. For whatever it's worth, my utilization (w/o Amex) was also 9% in the last EQ 04 score.
@freak4tech wrote:how can it when it doesnt show a CL. If it does as you say and it shows some type of CL that would awesome as my cl from my amex charge card is really high.
Credit reports have the highest balance a charge card account has had and this is apparently used in lieu of the CL.
I'm a bit surprised becuase I was under the impression account with CLs over 45k or so were not used in FICO scoring. However, up until this model change no account balance variation caused any FICO tick up or down.
I haven't noticed a change in my CS and my Amex bal was $2k higher last month and my CS remained the same.
@09Lexie wrote:I haven't noticed a change in my CS and my Amex bal was $2k higher last month and my CS remained the same.
Perhaps charge cards are now weighed but differently than revolvers. I have over 2 years of scorewatch FICO records which I've set to trigger on every possible event and my FICOs regularly changed on significant balance variations on all the revolvers but there has never been a FICO change on the Amex even though I get an alert each time.
This time it was different with a 9 point increase when my Amex posted 5k instead of 20k and my account had been upgraded just about a week ago.
OTOH, I would have expected more than a 9 point drop if utilization had been calculated the same way. I also played a bit with the FICO simulator and it showed exactly the same 9 point recovery for any charge card balance drop to 12k or less while gradually changing from 757 to 766 between a 20k and 12k balance. No improvement below that. Hard to say what that means but it is odd the simulator on the report a few days ago exactly predicted the score from the balance reduction today.
@cashnocredit wrote:
@09Lexie wrote:I haven't noticed a change in my CS and my Amex bal was $2k higher last month and my CS remained the same.
Perhaps charge cards are now weighed but differently than revolvers. I have over 2 years of scorewatch FICO records which I've set to trigger on every possible event and my FICOs regularly changed on significant balance variations on all the revolvers but there has never been a FICO change on the Amex even though I get an alert each time.
This time it was different with a 9 point increase when my Amex posted 5k instead of 20k and my account had been upgraded just about a week ago.
OTOH, I would have expected more than a 9 point drop if utilization had been calculated the same way. I also played a bit with the FICO simulator and it showed exactly the same 9 point recovery for any charge card balance drop to 12k or less while gradually changing from 757 to 766 between a 20k and 12k balance. No improvement below that. Hard to say what that means but it is odd the simulator on the report a few days ago exactly predicted the score from the balance reduction today.
I don't know senor, what other balances out of how many other tradelines did you have reporting at the time? That is the far more likely culprit as numerous users haven't noticed Amex Charge balances making any difference on Wally or other FICO 8 purveyors.
Also the score simulator has some blind spots, I'm willing to bet this is another and it absolutely is not a referencable datapoint 
.
@Revelate wrote:
@cashnocredit wrote:
@09Lexie wrote:I haven't noticed a change in my CS and my Amex bal was $2k higher last month and my CS remained the same.
Perhaps charge cards are now weighed but differently than revolvers. I have over 2 years of scorewatch FICO records which I've set to trigger on every possible event and my FICOs regularly changed on significant balance variations on all the revolvers but there has never been a FICO change on the Amex even though I get an alert each time.
This time it was different with a 9 point increase when my Amex posted 5k instead of 20k and my account had been upgraded just about a week ago.
OTOH, I would have expected more than a 9 point drop if utilization had been calculated the same way. I also played a bit with the FICO simulator and it showed exactly the same 9 point recovery for any charge card balance drop to 12k or less while gradually changing from 757 to 766 between a 20k and 12k balance. No improvement below that. Hard to say what that means but it is odd the simulator on the report a few days ago exactly predicted the score from the balance reduction today.
I don't know senor, what other balances out of how many other tradelines did you have reporting at the time? That is the far more likely culprit as numerous users haven't noticed Amex Charge balances making any difference on Wally or other FICO 8 purveyors.
Also the score simulator has some blind spots, I'm willing to bet this is another and it absolutely is not a referencable datapoint
Agree about the simulator. It's pretty meaningless that it happened to match.
Like others, I hadn't noticed any change with Wally either but they only report every month so causes of FICO changes are harder to determine. Because I have Scorewatch set up to report on every balance change and all my LOCs report at slightly different times it is easy to see exactly what changes impact FICO scores. Amex was the only blanace change when the 9 point increase occurred. Even though the balance change reporting causes an event each time, it has never before caused a single point change in over 2 years.
EtoA:
I'll check Wally TU08 scores v the EQ04 past scores to see if there is any evidence of Amex impact. There may or may not be any. Will update.
Update:
Checked Wally TU08 scores for the last 12 months. There is no indication that Amex balances had any effect. The changes roughly track EQ04 scores at the same time of the month. Almost all the EQ variation, from a low of 737 to a high of 770 were a result of numbers of accounts with balances at the time. TU08 was only half as sensitive to zero balances and, like EQ04, did not exhibit any changes from Amex balances which were the largest balances by far and varied from 0 to 22k.
So I have only a single data point with EQ08 showing a significant change with Amex balances. I'll be looking at this closer in the coming months. Perhaps this is an anomaly related to the Scorewatch transition. Perhaps it is a part of EQ08 and not TU08. Each CRA has their own customized FICO algorithms and it is possible EQ08 is sensitive to charge card balances while TU08 is not. Time will tell.
More evidence Amex Charge balances impact FICO08.
Amex balance reduced from 6k to 2k. SW FICO08 increased from 770 to 778. No other changes.
This is odd in that I haven't seen similar Amex impact on Wally 08 FICOs and there was no impact prior to the EQ upgrade to FICO08. But now it is quite significant and is about what I would expect were the Amex card a revolver.
Hrm, still not certain I buy it but does look strange at first blush.
Unfortunately I'm not in a place financially where I can really test it with my Zync in any measureable fashion.