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This does seem a bit curious...
Amex gives you 3/6/9 month options on a $159.47 purchase with a 641 EX.
Amex recently gave me a 3 or 6 month option (but not 9) on a $3500 purchase with a 760 EX.
I PIFed, but checked for the purposes of another thread here: https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Amex-Cash-Magnet/td-p/5386315
The fee was equivalent to nearly a 10% APR for both of my options.
I'd expect them to be eager to extend a longer-term (9 month) option to me. Maybe it's that they figure they have less capital at risk in your case?
@wasCB14 wrote:This does seem a bit curious...
Amex gives you 3/6/9 month options on a $159.47 purchase with a 641 EX.
Amex recently gave me a 3 or 6 month option (but not 9) on a $3500 purchase with a 760 EX.
I PIFed, but checked for the purposes of another thread here: https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Amex-Cash-Magnet/td-p/5386315
The fee was equivalent to nearly a 10% APR for both of my options.
I'd expect them to be eager to extend a longer-term (9 month) option to me. Maybe it's that they figure they have less capital at risk in your case?
This is one of the types of datapoints I was interested in. I have a $300 charge coming through and will post up the options given when it's available. Also, for $3500, I would have expected them to offer you up to the 24 mos max that I've seen.
@Brian_Earl_Spilner wrote:
@wasCB14 wrote:This does seem a bit curious...
Amex gives you 3/6/9 month options on a $159.47 purchase with a 641 EX.
Amex recently gave me a 3 or 6 month option (but not 9) on a $3500 purchase with a 760 EX.
I PIFed, but checked for the purposes of another thread here: https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Amex-Cash-Magnet/td-p/5386315
The fee was equivalent to nearly a 10% APR for both of my options.
I'd expect them to be eager to extend a longer-term (9 month) option to me. Maybe it's that they figure they have less capital at risk in your case?
This is one of the types of datapoints I was interested in. I have a $300 charge coming through and will post up the options given when it's available. Also, for $3500, I would have expected them to offer you up to the 24 mos max that I've seen.
Actually, even on a $5k transaction, Amex only offers me 3 and 6 months.
Maybe they're worried about utilization. The $3.5k and $5k transactions were both on a $10k card. I'm also carrying $4k on a $9k BBP at 0% (having run tens of thousands through it already).
Also, Amex did send me a 1.99% promo offer...of course, it only arrived after the $8.5k spend and was certainly not retroactive in any way.
Figured I'd throw in my Plan It experience as well, for reference.
Initially, I wasn't aware of the feature when I used my BCE for a $1,000 purchase and I was prepared to PIF. However, the next time I signed into my account the "Plan It" button was next to the charge so I decided to experiment. They offered me 3, 6, or 9 month installments--I chose 3 months with a fee of $10.24 per payment ($30.72 total in fees) making each payment $343.57. I've only had the card since July of this year and my scores at the time I inititaed Plan It are in my signature below.
So far no change in frequency of offers and no indication that overuse could result in penalty. I probably won't need it very often, any expense I need to stretch out I use PayPal Credit where accepted or my low interest credit union card. Still a nice option to have though.
On my ED card with slightly over $6K balance, they offered $1,500, $1,000, and $500 for monthly payments. I forget the term lenghts, other than 12 months at $500 and change. With no fee as I'm currently in 0% APR promo. The $10K on my PRG I just BT'd to Discover for a much cheaper rate though, and will pay that off in a year. Amex's offer on that one wasn't as good.
I do wonder why the are doing this, as they do offer revolvers. If this was a testing of the waters to see if "balance" carrying was a thing, my thought it that's what the revolvers are for? So I am a bit mystified why they implemented this option on Charge cards. Surely they could just have one streamless model?
Most charge car users are PIF types, that's why they have the card. So it must suit them. Now this option does mkae sense in case of emergencies or any unplanned expense that canot be PIF by the due date. After all stuff can happen to anyone, even high rollers.
So I do see it as a good benefit, which benefits both parties.
@Anonymous wrote:On my ED card with slightly over $6K balance, they offered $1,500, $1,000, and $500 for monthly payments. I forget the term lenghts, other than 12 months at $500 and change. With no fee as I'm currently in 0% APR promo. The $10K on my PRG I just BT'd to Discover for a much cheaper rate though, and will pay that off in a year. Amex's offer on that one wasn't as good.
I do wonder why the are doing this, as they do offer revolvers. If this was a testing of the waters to see if "balance" carrying was a thing, my thought it that's what the revolvers are for? So I am a bit mystified why they implemented this option on Charge cards. Surely they could just have one streamless model?
Most charge car users are PIF types, that's why they have the card. So it must suit them. Now this option does mkae sense in case of emergencies or any unplanned expense that canot be PIF by the due date. After all stuff can happen to anyone, even high rollers.
So I do see it as a good benefit, which benefits both parties.
Plan It is actually a revolver feature. What charge cards have is Pay Over Time.
Both are for purchases over $100, though my POT APR is >20% while my Plan It fee is equivalent to <10%. POT is explicitly called interest, while Plan It uses "fee" terminology. Economically it is really interest, but I think some legal and accounting aspects would go haywire if they actually called it interest.
Some cards have (or used to have) something called an Extended Payment Option as well as a Sign and Travel feature.
So there are and have been several variants from simple charge and revolver agreements.
Here's an update with my new charge. Haven't done the math, but it appears to be the same rate. Still, no longer than 9 months, but the balances are small enough it shouldn't be stretched further.
I did make a $248 purchase on Monday and they gave me the 3/6/9 month options to pay off.
I have an SPG Lux with purchse APR of 12.24%. I am running a $4,000 purchase on Plan It, took the 3 months option though 6 and 9 were available. Total fee for the 3 payments will be $55.17 for an annualized rate of 5.5%.
So if you want a better Plan It rate, my guess is ask to get the APR on regular purchases reduced. The challenge with that request is, on other AMEX cards I've been offered a 1% reduction for a year, from a 19.99% rate. Not a classy offer.