American Express - payments/closing date/utilization

[Pony4her]

Hi all - New here.  I have an American Express Delta SkyMiles® Gold Card, just to confirm, I should make my monthly payment before the account statement closing date, correct?  Trying to reduce my utilization.  Thanks in advance for responding.

[ChargedUp]

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@Pony4her wrote:

Hi all - New here.  I have an American Express Delta SkyMiles® Gold Card, just to confirm, I should make my monthly payment before the account statement closing date, correct?  Trying to reduce my utilization.  Thanks in advance for responding.

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If you're paying your entire balance and want Amex to report your balance as zero, then yes... Make the payment before the statement cut date.

If you pay less than the full balance, your lower balance will be reported but you will still owe a payment after the statement cuts.

[Red1Blue]

From what I know if the $0 balance on the account Amex might not update immeadietly. Not sure why. Others might have a different opinion and experience. You might want to keep a small balance on the account so you can they will be forced to report the new low balance.

[Pony4her]

Thanks for responding.  I plan to make a $500 payment on a balance of $1433.  Currently, I'm trying to reduce my DTI as I'm preparing for a mortgage loan, new build.  I would like to ensure my scores continue to build and not become stagnant since it'll take 6-9 months to build our home.  Should I follow AZEO now or just continue to pay down and then AZEO a month before the final mortgage credit pull?

Am Ex $1433/2100

Cap 1 $74/500

Cap 1 $156/1000

Lowes $533/2500

current scores 690-642-745

[Red1Blue]

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@Pony4her wrote:

Thanks for responding.  I plan to make a $500 payment on a balance of $1433.  Currently, I'm trying to reduce my DTI as I'm preparing for a mortgage loan, new build.  I would like to ensure my scores continue to build and not become stagnant since it'll take 6-9 months to build our home.  Should I follow AZEO now or just continue to pay down and then AZEO a month before the final mortgage credit pull?

Am Ex $1433/2100

Cap 1 $74/500

Cap 1 $156/1000

Lowes $533/2500

current scores 690-642-745

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I'll let others chime in. I think 2 months of AZEO should be enough before you apply for the loan. Also keep in mind there is no reason to pay interest on the cards if you can afford to pay to pay it in full and avoid the interest.

[Pony4her]

Current home on market now, need to move forward with pre-approval so we can put down contract on new construction.  My DTI is 38%, paying down the Am Ex by $500, and the others will lower the DTI to 33%, however,  I also want to continue to boost the scores through my build time.  Such stress, lol.  Will pay them off and follow AZEO while building.  Thank you.

[Red1Blue]

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@Pony4her wrote:

Current home on market now, need to move forward with pre-approval so we can put down contract on new construction.  My DTI is 38%, paying down the Am Ex by $500, and the others will lower the DTI to 33%, however,  I also want to continue to boost the scores through my build time.  Such stress, lol.  Will pay them off and follow AZEO while building.  Thank you.

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If that is the case, you can always call Amex and request them to update the balance to $0. I am sure Amex would be happy to do that and also they have ability to update the report if they choose to do so. Also you can dispute the balance with CR and have the update the balance to $0. Or you can always show the paid recepit to Mortage recepit to the Lender and show them it is paid. There are many options. I think the Mortgage section on the Fico forums might be best place to discuss the strategies.

[Anonymous]

Find out the date the card (all your cards) report (to bureaus), not statement date or due date. It could be before or after a statement/due date. (call AMEX, they will tell you the report date)

Make payments a few days before and it will always report the balance when you paid it. 

[Pony4her]

Will definitely do this.  Thank you 

[PackAttack07]

I've read several posts about AMEX not updating balances to bureaus regularly and particularly at $0 statement end balance but that hasn't been my experience. AMEX has always historically updated balances on credit cards within a couple days of statement end date for me. There is no reason to keep a balance to get AMEX to report since they will do it anyway, particularly if your goal is better stores/DTI, certainly if it's a credit card. The exception is if that is your only non-zero balance.

You would get penalized scoring-wise for having an additional account with a balance, and the minimum payment on even just $25 in balance is going to $25 that's going to (very marginally) lower your DTI.

If you need to get AMEX to report an updated balance to the bureaus mid-cycle, you can do that easily. I did it Friday afternoon and Experian was updated the next day, TransUnion 2 days later (but showed 6/11 as-of date so could just be WalletHub being delayed.

AMEX Credit Bureau Team:

(800) 874-2712

9am-5:30pm EST M-F

Select the option about "credit inquiries" (option 1) to get to a person, otherwise if you just hold you'll get kicked back to customer support and they'll have to retransfer you.

The one thing I CAN say is that AMEX has not been giving me PDF statements when I pay off my cards before the statement date (as I usually do). That is the case even when I had a balance report on the prior statement and paid it during that statement. But the balance was still $0 so not sure why it would even matter if they updated or not - I have never heard of and do not believe that AMEX would just randomly report a non-statement ending balance unless you ask them to.