AmEx Small Balance Write-off?

[Anonymous]

Whenever my statement for AmEx cards is about to post, I always pay it off except for $1 so it'll report to bureaus, but when I went to check my statement for my green card, the balance was zero and there was a "Small Balance Write-Off Purchase Principle" crediting me $1. It's just a dollar, but kind of surprised they did that! Does this happen to anyone else regularly? Is it meant to be a gesture?

[Anonymous]

I believe discover does it for under $3 or up to $2.

[Anonymous]

Ah, interesting. I did a quick google search and I guess AmEx isn't known to do this very often, and I would assume they do it to people who've been with them for a long time maybe, but I've only been a cardholder since June.

[Anonymous]

I have seen a couple other posts on this but really not too many.

[NRB525]

Yes, and one of those other posters ended up getting AA from the bank ( think it was either Discover or Barclays ) because they just kept doing these "small write off" tricks.

My advice would be to leave a $10 balance on the statement, if you must play this low reporting game, and not poke the bear for $1.

[wasCB14]

I think my lowest non-$0 balance on an Amex was $1.50. I had to pay it.

I did once poke the Discover bear over this and got my $1.25 or whatever it was.