New Amex Platinum Question

[Anonymous]

From my understanding credit utilization is left off of reports for charge cards such as the Platinum, I am however wondering if Amex reports an open line of credit, or the high balance, and if so if it would be better for me to make all my large purchases this month as opposed to over the course of the next three months.

I appreciate any help!

[fltireguy]

It reports statement balance, with no cl showing

[Anonymous]

wrote:
It reports statement balance, with no cl showing

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In that case is it better to spread my spending out during these first 3 months, or does it not make much of a difference?

[RicHowe]

Utilization will not be affected as it will not report a CL.

The only material difference I can see is that large purchases at once does affect your internal spend limit with AMEX. If they see large purchasing and payments, your internal spend limit will increase as AMEX typically uses a rolling 3-6 month average to determine your spend ability on a charge card.

[Snipper117]

Personally with my platinum wether my balance was $30 or $3000 I never saw a change in credit score from this.  

My pre approval $ amount has increased recently as I've been making larger purchases and making payments mid cycle so I dont get hit with a super high pif balance at the end of cycle.  Along with my credit score increasing also during this thing..  For me I feel those were the two major reasons for my increased spending limit.  

Everyone is different but for me making the large purchases in a short time period (not planned) and making payments before the cycle ends and then obviously before the due date hellped increase my spending limit.

[Anonymous]

It will count towards your overall balance in your credit report, which can affect your scores via utilization.

Example - your total credit limit is 100k, and you have an Amex with NPSL.

Your balances on your other cards is 20k, giving you a 20% utilization.

But your Amex balance is 13k, giving you a total balnce of 33k.  It does matter.  I remember when I let a 10k plat balance skate a month before paying it off.....score jumped a few points once that balance got paid off.

[K-in-Boston]

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@Anonymous wrote:

It will count towards your overall balance in your credit report, which can affect your scores via utilization.

Example - your total credit limit is 100k, and you have an Amex with NPSL.

Your balances on your other cards is 20k, giving you a 20% utilization.

But your Amex balance is 13k, giving you a total balnce of 33k.  It does matter.  I remember when I let a 10k plat balance skate a month before paying it off.....score jumped a few points once that balance got paid off.

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There would be other reasons for your score changes.  Balances on charge cards that don't report a limit have ZERO effect on modern FICO credit scoring models.  Back in the stone ages, they were factored into utilization, so we would often charge it up really high right off the bat to set a baseline since the highest balance ever reported was used as the "credit line" for that purpose.  (Edit: This was also the case for the original Visa Signature cards that had NPSL.)  That has not been the case for quite some time, unless an outdated scoring model is being used.

OP, the high balance will be listed on your reports but no limit will ever be reported, including Pay Over Time limits if/when they are offered to you.  As others have stated, there should be zero difference between making a charge of $15,000 now, or $5,000 three times over three months, except that spending more right off the bat will certainly set your internal spending limit higher.