topic Re: AmEx Remaining Statement Balance vs Total Balance vs Minimal Balance in Credit Cards

AmEx Remaining Statement Balance vs Total Balance vs Minimal Balance

eastsea — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 17:18:26 GMT

My Amex BCE's last statement was posted a week ago with a balance of $115. After the statement post about 3 days ago I redeemed cashback of $100. Now the card has the these numbers:

"Remaining Statement Balace" is still $115

"Total Balance" has been reduced to $15

"Minimal Balance" is still $35

So I am a little confused, which number should I pay if I do not want to pay any interest and of course I also do not want to considered late.

Re: AmEx Remaining Statement Balance vs Total Balance vs Minimal Balance

Remedios — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 17:29:08 GMT

@eastsea wrote:
My Amex BCE's last statement was posted a week ago with a balance of $115. After the statement post about 3 days ago I redeemed cashback of $100. Now the card has the these numbers:

"Remaining Statement Balace" is still $115
"Total Balance" has been reduced to $15
"Minimal Balance" is still $35

So I am a little confused, which number should I pay if I do not want to pay any interest and of course I also do not want to considered late.

You still have to pay the minimum payment, even though your balance is less than minimum payment.

With Amex, statement credit you received doesn't "count" towards minimum payment.

This has caused some grief to others previously.

Amex math is Amex math, no way around it.

Re: AmEx Remaining Statement Balance vs Total Balance vs Minimal Balance

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 17:31:08 GMT

Pay the Total Balance; preferably a few days before your payment is actually due so you can see how the totals adjust.

Re: AmEx Remaining Statement Balance vs Total Balance vs Minimal Balance

Remedios — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 17:39:25 GMT

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/AMEX-Minimum-Payment-with-Cashback/td-p/5486366

Do not pay $15.00.

This has been chewed and spit out before

Re: AmEx Remaining Statement Balance vs Total Balance vs Minimal Balance

Remedios — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 17:41:34 GMT

Or https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Amex-statement-credits-vs-statement-balance/td-p/5479487

Now you can properly decide which amount you should pay.

Re: AmEx Remaining Statement Balance vs Total Balance vs Minimal Balance

K-in-Boston — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 17:46:10 GMT

Definitively per your cardholder agreement, cash back does not meet the minimum payment requirements. It is a credit appearing on your next statement, not a payment.

Re: AmEx Remaining Statement Balance vs Total Balance vs Minimal Balance

Remedios — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 17:47:08 GMT

I said that like 5 posts ago 🤷‍♀️

Re: AmEx Remaining Statement Balance vs Total Balance vs Minimal Balance

eastsea — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 17:54:28 GMT

The Minimal Payment of $35 is less than the "Remaining Statement Balance", so if I only pay $35, will there be interest next time?

Re: AmEx Remaining Statement Balance vs Total Balance vs Minimal Balance

K-in-Boston — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 17:55:03 GMT

@Remedios wrote:
I said that like 5 posts ago 🤷‍♀️

You did. I just wanted wanted to say it again. 😂

Re: AmEx Remaining Statement Balance vs Total Balance vs Minimal Balance

mkhan1093 — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 18:33:15 GMT

So in my personal Amex experience, credits (which I guess would be the same as cashback redemptions) actually adjusted my remaining payment as well as my total balance only up until a month or two ago. My $10 Gold credits, Amex offers, etc would reduce my payment required. This stopped happening around February so I assumed that they changed something internally. Interesting that DPs exist for this all the way back to early 2019 and is apparently a well-known Amex policy. Oh well

Re: AmEx Remaining Statement Balance vs Total Balance vs Minimal Balance

eastsea — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 19:12:38 GMT

@mkhan1093 wrote:
So in my personal Amex experience, credits (which I guess would be the same as cashback redemptions) actually adjusted my remaining payment as well as my total balance only up until a month or two ago. My $10 Gold credits, Amex offers, etc would reduce my payment required. This stopped happening around February so I assumed that they changed something internally. Interesting that DPs exist for this all the way back to early 2019 and is apparently a well-known Amex policy. Oh well

In the thread provided by @Remedios there were posts from @K-in-Boston and @FinStar and if I understand them correctly I believe in this case, I will need to pay the entire $115 in order not to incur any interest charges.

Amex cash redemption is applied to the current statement cycle. In this case the statement cycle runs from May 28th to June 27th and the $100 I redeemed on June 1st will be reflected in the statement that will post on June 27th and is due in July. And if I spend $120 between May 28th and June 27, the June 27th statement will have a Statement Balance of $20 and the Minimal Payment will also be $20.

Anyway I will pay $115 this time and see.

Re: AmEx Remaining Statement Balance vs Total Balance vs Minimal Balance

K-in-Boston — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 19:12:18 GMT

That is correct. Your cashback will be applied as a credit toward any charges made during this statement cycle, but does not satisfy payment on your previous statement balance, minimum or otherwise.

Re: AmEx Remaining Statement Balance vs Total Balance vs Minimal Balance

mkhan1093 — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 19:16:59 GMT

Yes, this is what you have to do. You must pay what you would have paid had you not redeemed any cashback. You might end up with a negative total balance, which you can ask for either a deposit back into your connected bank account (sometimes they don't do this) or mail you a check.

Re: AmEx Remaining Statement Balance vs Total Balance vs Minimal Balance

K-in-Boston — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 19:17:23 GMT

@mkhan1093 wrote:
So in my personal Amex experience, credits (which I guess would be the same as cashback redemptions) actually adjusted my remaining payment as well as my total balance only up until a month or two ago. My $10 Gold credits, Amex offers, etc would reduce my payment required. This stopped happening around February so I assumed that they changed something internally. Interesting that DPs exist for this all the way back to early 2019 and is apparently a well-known Amex policy. Oh well

Weird. I don't recall that being the case that Amex Offers or "benefit credits" (need to distinguish those from merchant credits aka refunds) ever reduced my remaining statement balance or affected minimum amount due, only the Total Balance and ultimately the next statement balance. I usually just schedule a payment for whatever the statement balance is right after statement close, so it's quite possible I just never noticed that being the case.

Re: AmEx Remaining Statement Balance vs Total Balance vs Minimal Balance

Remedios — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 19:37:12 GMT

Last word! 😐

Re: AmEx Remaining Statement Balance vs Total Balance vs Minimal Balance

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 22:25:39 GMT

Just so for anyone else that come across this issue, the clear answer is Always pay the minimum due by the due date. Then you can apply any CB as a statement credit towards the remaining balance, and if you do this early enough it will post before your next statement closes.

Re: AmEx Remaining Statement Balance vs Total Balance vs Minimal Balance

NRB525 — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 07:19:17 GMT

On my April 27 Platinum statement, I had a New Balance of $1,365.43. Same as Total Balance at that moment.

I was trying to wrap up a promotional POT balance, and had turned off autopay so I had been setting payment amounts less than Pay In Full for the last few months.

On or about April 29, I scheduled the payment of $1,365.43 to be taken for May 16.

Charged new amounts totaling $204.07

Received credits for CAP and a promo, $307.72.

On May 16, they adjusted the scheduled payment to take the actual amount owed at that moment of $1,261.78, to bring the account to exactly zero.

So you should schedule the payment amount of $115 to be a few days before the due date, and AMEX will sort it out for you. This method also ensures you don't trigger any unintended interest costs by trying to be cute paying short.

No need to worry about maths.

Re: AmEx Remaining Statement Balance vs Total Balance vs Minimal Balance

SouthJamaica — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 03:49:05 GMT

@eastsea wrote:
My Amex BCE's last statement was posted a week ago with a balance of $115. After the statement post about 3 days ago I redeemed cashback of $100. Now the card has the these numbers:

"Remaining Statement Balace" is still $115
"Total Balance" has been reduced to $15
"Minimal Balance" is still $35

So I am a little confused, which number should I pay if I do not want to pay any interest and of course I also do not want to considered late.

If the "remaining statement balance" is $115, then I would pay $115.

If that moves down to $15, then I would pay $35, the minimum payment due.

Re: AmEx Remaining Statement Balance vs Total Balance vs Minimal Balance

Save-n-Invest — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 17:06:50 GMT

Sounds like Kohl's Cash.

Re: AmEx Remaining Statement Balance vs Total Balance vs Minimal Balance

MacCreed — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 17:16:09 GMT

If you want to avoid late pay at least the minimal. If you want to ensure no interest, pay the highest number.