AMEX Charge Card High Balance

[NAVYCHOP]

My main bank and credit union seem to base their credit decisions off the FICO mortgage 2 model.

Reading the forums, I have noticed that that scoring Mortgage 2 model looks at AMEX charge card high balances as if it were a credit limit.

Generally I pay my balance on the AMEX Platinum before the statement generates.  My monthly spend is about 50 percent of my high balance.  This month I ran up a super high balance with some tax payments such that my average spend would be only about 15 percent utilization.

If I want to recalibrate and raise the high balance that AMEX reports on that card, does anyone know (a) if AMEX reports the absolute high balance on a card even if mid-cycle (ie if I pay down before statement generates) or (b) do I need to not pay before the statement generates to have the high balance report on my monthly statement and then pay off regardless of the one month score hit for having AMEX report a large balance that is 3x higher than my previous high balance.

Just as a data point, I had a pre set spending limit on the card for a couple years when I had a high credit utilization on other cards outside of AMEX.  If you don't nip that in the bud when the spending limit is set, it can take years for the card algorithms to return to NPSL.  However, once they returned my account to NPSL last month, they are allowing me to run up my account to 6x the last pre-set spending limit that they gave me and 3x what they have set as my POT limit which I have inactive.  Maybe that is because I have had the account nearly 40 years and never burned them on any payments.

[GZG]

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@NAVYCHOP wrote:

My main bank and credit union seem to base their credit decisions off the FICO mortgage 2 model.

Reading the forums, I have noticed that that scoring Mortgage 2 model looks at AMEX charge card high balances as if it were a credit limit.

does anyone know (a) if AMEX reports the absolute high balance on a card even if mid-cycle (ie if I pay down before statement generates) or (b) do I need to not pay before the statement generates to have the high balance report on my monthly statement and then pay off regardless of the one month score hit for having AMEX report a large balance that is 3x higher than my previous high balance.

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a balance doesn't need to report as a statement balance to be a high balance

amex gold statement balances:

I made a tax payment with my gold card as well $X,XXX and pushed a bank payment to amex in that same amount at the same time, I imagine the bank payment got to amex before my tax charge even cleared, so my high balance never got reflected.

I imagine it just has to hit the total balance at any point and it will reflect as a high balance, I don't know specifically if it has to be for a certain length of time, I imagine not, but I have no way of knowing that for sure. I do know that it doesn't necessarily need to reflect as a statement balance though to reflect as the high balance.

[SouthJamaica]

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@NAVYCHOP wrote:

My main bank and credit union seem to base their credit decisions off the FICO mortgage 2 model.

Reading the forums, I have noticed that that scoring Mortgage 2 model looks at AMEX charge card high balances as if it were a credit limit.

Generally I pay my balance on the AMEX Platinum before the statement generates.  My monthly spend is about 50 percent of my high balance.  This month I ran up a super high balance with some tax payments such that my average spend would be only about 15 percent utilization.

If I want to recalibrate and raise the high balance that AMEX reports on that card, does anyone know (a) if AMEX reports the absolute high balance on a card even if mid-cycle (ie if I pay down before statement generates) or (b) do I need to not pay before the statement generates to have the high balance report on my monthly statement and then pay off regardless of the one month score hit for having AMEX report a large balance that is 3x higher than my previous high balance.

Just as a data point, I had a pre set spending limit on the card for a couple years when I had a high credit utilization on other cards outside of AMEX.  If you don't nip that in the bud when the spending limit is set, it can take years for the card algorithms to return to NPSL.  However, once they returned my account to NPSL last month, they are allowing me to run up my account to 6x the last pre-set spending limit that they gave me and 3x what they have set as my POT limit which I have inactive.  Maybe that is because I have had the account nearly 40 years and never burned them on any payments.

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Yes it reports the absolute high balance no matter where in the cycle it occurred.

[NAVYCHOP]

Thanks for your pointers.  You made me realize this is the month to push everything onto my Platinum card regardless of other rebates with other cards.  Maybe I can push my high balance over $60k in the next two weeks before I PIF which will help my FICO mortgage 2 score immensely for years to come.

[NAVYCHOP]

Just to clarify with a definitive response:  AMEX just issued my statement and they reported my statement balance as my new high balance on Equifax.  I had a balance mid-cycle that was about $10k higher than my statement balance but AMEX did not report my mid-cycle high balance to the credit bureau as others surmised in this forum, only the high balance on statement closing date.  Thus, with my interest in recalibrating the high balance significantly upward, I'm glad I did not pay the Platinum AMEX card back down to zero before the statement generated.

With an increased balance of $56k all on one card on my credit report, I thought with a normal card my score might have dropped as much as 100 points, but so far it is holding firm at 797.  (Last month it dropped from 801 to 797 on FICO 8 when I had two credit inquiries and 5 new account openings which I figure is the last time I plan to apply for new cards).

Despite the high new Platinum balance, my credit utilization stayed the same (as the AMEX charge cards are not calculated) so there seems to be a definite advantage putting high balances on AMEX's charge cards compared to revolvers.

Long story short:  If you want AMEX to report a new higher balance on your charge card, to gain the advantage of the FICO Mortgage 2 computation which is the only FICO model that uses your AMEX charge card high balance as credit limit for credit utilization, you need to let that amount generate on the end of month statement.

[Thomas_Thumb]

I have had an AMEX charge card since 1984. From what I have seen the high balance is the highest statement balance - not a potentially higher interim balance during a month.

The only version of Fico in use that considers charge card utilization is Fico 98 which is used for EX score 2. Since AMEX is a npsl card utilization for it is current balance/high balance. If CB is the new HB then utilization would be 100% that month.

The EQ score 5 and TU score 4 "mortgage" Ficos are based on the Fico 04 model algorithm. That algorithm ignores npsl AMEX in utilization calculations.