topic Re: AmEx Gold Card and CL Reporting in Understanding FICO® Scoring

AmEx Gold Card and CL Reporting

tbque — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:52:53 GMT

I’m an AU on DW’s AmEx Gold card which allows you to carry a balance even though it’s a charge card. On my CR it shows the balance owed but is that figure being factored into my overall Utilization?

Re: AmEx Gold Card and CL Reporting

DapprD — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:59:41 GMT

Per the myFICO website ...

Revolving Utilization %

Authorized user accounts aren't considered in the calculation of this attribute.

Re: AmEx Gold Card and CL Reporting

tbque — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 18:07:28 GMT

Thanks @DapperD! So none of the 3 credit cards that I’m AU on of DW counts against my utilization? That’s freaking awesome as I can easily pay down my low limit secured cards relatively quickly!

Re: AmEx Gold Card and CL Reporting

Caardvark — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 19:18:30 GMT

That is incorrect. AU "revolving" accounts are factored into your utilization.

Charge cards were factored into utilization in some older FICO models but as of FICO 8 are no longer considered. And, this is true whether it is your card or an AU. Only revolving balances are factored.

Re: AmEx Gold Card and CL Reporting

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 20:23:31 GMT

@Caardvark wrote:
That is incorrect. AU "revolving" accounts are factored into your utilization.

This is one of those odd unclear items that drives me nuts. Per MyFICO's site, it isn't... see below... yet many folks here report score changes when AU card balances drop. Also, the %util reported by MyFICO subscription does *NOT* include AU balances, as a recent drop of 7k didn't touch my percentages. Image below is screenshot from my personal MyFICO account.

Re: AmEx Gold Card and CL Reporting

tbque — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 21:31:10 GMT

@Dogbert yes this is confusing to me as I too have the myFICO subscription and noticed the disclaimer about AU. Thus my question to the forum as I can’t tell if they are counting or not. I’m going to pay off all my secured cards to 0 except a small balance on one and see what myFico reports my util as. However, I did ask DW to take me off AU on one card so I could see if I got a point increase when it reported.

Re: AmEx Gold Card and CL Reporting

Brian_Earl_Spilner — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 21:36:57 GMT

Well, what's your utilization without the gold card? If you did the math, it should be clear if it's included or not. It either matches your reported utilization, or it doesn't.

Re: AmEx Gold Card and CL Reporting

tbque — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 21:50:55 GMT

Besides the Gold Card I am a AU on two other DW cards both of which are close to being maxed. Thus when I combined those balances with my low CL secured card balances also maxed I can’t tell what is being counted and what is not? I have started to pay my down to O so I’ll redo the math when I get an updated report from myFico. But thanks for your advice.

Re: AmEx Gold Card and CL Reporting

FlaDude — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 18:26:42 GMT

My daughter's FICO went up around 40 points when I removed her as an AU on a $7k account that was over 90% and added her as an AU on a PIF account with a $30k CL. Her only other card had a 3k balance on a 4.5k CL during that period and that didn't change. She also has a car loan but it didn't cross any major thresholds during that time. The new AU did reset her AoYA, but didn't have much effect on her AAoA so that in theory could have had some lowering effect on the scores.

I'm a firm believer that AU UTI matters.

Re: AmEx Gold Card and CL Reporting

FicoGuy2019 — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 19:19:05 GMT

AU utilization is counted. I used to be an AU on 2 cards that had 30k limits. When there was a balance on one of them or both of them, it counted towards my overall utilization.

Also, another thing to note that I recently experienced by letting a balance report for the 1st time on an Amex NPSL - the balance is counted but utilization is not because since there is no limit reported, it can't calculate utilization, only the balance. All of my cars went to 0.00 balance so Amex was the closest one to report so I left a balance...however, since it's NPSL it didn't work out.

Re: AmEx Gold Card and CL Reporting

Queen_Etherea — Wed, 01 May 2019 22:30:18 GMT

@FlaDude wrote:
My daughter's FICO went up around 40 points when I removed her as an AU on a $7k account that was over 90% and added her as an AU on a PIF account with a $30k CL. Her only other card had a 3k balance on a 4.5k CL during that period and that didn't change. She also has a car loan but it didn't cross any major thresholds during that time. The new AU did reset her AoYA, but didn't have much effect on her AAoA so that in theory could have had some lowering effect on the scores.

I'm a firm believer that AU UTI matters.

Oh UTI on AU accounts 100% matters! My dad had me as an AU on his Penfed card which was 98% maxed out. I only had one other credit card at the time with very low limits, but very low balances. My overall UTI was 97%. As soon as I removed myself as an AU, my UTI came down to almost 0%, and my scores went up quite a bit. Can't remember exactly how much, but I remember it being a significant amount.

He's been paying the card down significantly, and as soon as he does, I'm going to have him add me back on. It's an older account, so I would love to have that on my reports again.