Question about AMEX payments.

[Anonymous]

Quick question:

I just switched from my WF Visa to my AMEX to utilize the better rewards/cash back. I get paid every other Friday and normally I would take my balance + pending transactions, add them together and make that payment.

As I have switched to AMEX, is the only payment amount I am able to make the statement balance? Can I not make any payments in excess of that?

The only reason I ask is because I just got the card, 12 days in my first billing cycle, and statement balance is $112.67 but my current balance is $165ish. I would prefer to pay the $165ish but it is telling me I cannot because it exceeds the current balance? Just looking for some clarification here.

Thanks all!

[Anonymous]

Bump, if anyone has info pertaining to this.

[adavis425]

AFAIK, you can pay the entire balance once all transactions have posted. You can't pay pending transactions.

[Razeus]

If you push the money from your bank to AMEX using your bank's bill pay system, it can be done.  If you're trying to pay on AMEX's site, I think you can only pay what's actually posted, not the pending.

[Anonymous]

Great. Thanks everybody.

[DeadSpider]

+1 pay from bank any amount to any credit card.

[theoldnocreditmaster]

Ditto on the push from your bank.

Don’t do what I did.  I paid for all the balances and pending transactions on several cards. Hotel reservation, rental car etc., and then I had to push my  trip out a couple of weeks.  Want to see something funny…   watch FICO try to analyze credit balances. It didn’t respond very well to me having a negative 3% util….  

[Walt_K]

---

@theoldnocreditmaster wrote:

Ditto on the push from your bank.

Don’t do what I did.  I paid for all the balances and pending transactions on several cards. Hotel reservation, rental car etc., and then I had to push my  trip out a couple of weeks.  Want to see something funny…   watch FICO try to analyze credit balances. It didn’t respond very well to me having a negative 3% util….  

---

Huh?  Banks usually report $0 if you have a credit balance.  Lowest utilization is 0%.  Did you have a lender actually report a negative balance?  Never heard of that before.

[theoldnocreditmaster]

This was several years ago and yes they did. It was funny as hell…  

 was reviewing my reports and there was a balance showing on a card (Crap One) I had paid months ago, and the last time they reported was when there was a balance and no update since. So I clicked the dispute button. Not only on that particular account, but I disputed all of my balances on all of my cards for the hell of it.

They verified all the balances. The Crap One that was reporting a balance went to zero. The others showed a credit balance after the dispute.  It was funny trying to read FICO telling me how to improve my credit.  It had no idea what to say.

Within about two weeks after the dispute they all sent me checks (without requesting them) for the credit balance(s).  

[armbenderc]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Quick question:

I just switched from my WF Visa to my AMEX to utilize the better rewards/cash back. I get paid every other Friday and normally I would take my balance + pending transactions, add them together and make that payment.

As I have switched to AMEX, is the only payment amount I am able to make the statement balance? Can I not make any payments in excess of that?

The only reason I ask is because I just got the card, 12 days in my first billing cycle, and statement balance is $112.67 but my current balance is $165ish. I would prefer to pay the $165ish but it is telling me I cannot because it exceeds the current balance? Just looking for some clarification here.

Thanks all!

---

Hmm, I never have any problem at all paying more than what is actually posted. For example, I paid 1100 in the card.

The posted transaction is 800 and the pending is 300, so I paid 1100. As with Amex, the payment posted right away and I have -300 balance. However when the charge posted, I have 0 balance. This works on Amex Charge and BCE.