How does my amex gold effect my utilization?

[Anonymous]

I have a gold card and a bce. Recently I've been getting bumps in my credit score for a low utilization (about 3%) from my bce. I was wondering, what would happen if I were to stop using the bce and use my gold (charge) card instead? Would my utilization go down to zero?

[takeshi74]

It won't for current scoring models.  Older models do factor charge cards into revolving utilization.

If you want to continue using the BCE and have lower utilization you can adjust your balance prior to statement date.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I have a gold card and a bce. Recently I've been getting bumps in my credit score for a low utilization (about 3%) from my bce. I was wondering, what would happen if I were to stop using the bce and use my gold (charge) card instead? Would my utilization go down to zero?

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I've had an Amex charge card for over a year and it's never reported at all. So it has no effect on  utilization one way or the other.

[Anonymous]

My Amex PRG has dramatically lowered my utilization. 

That's because it doesn't factor into the score at all, but has the lion's share of my monthly spend on it. So my other cards sit there with low balances, while all my spend is on the PRG, and from a credit bureau perspective I'm using less than 4% of my available credit.

To the OP: I think once you're under 8% utilization there's no further benefit to your score from reducing it even more (unless you go to 0% which hurts).

[Anonymous]

So if I were to use my gold card exclusively (and have my bce at 0%), would it report as 0%, and therefore hurt me?

[Anonymous]

In theory, but if you went a whole month and never once encountered a place that only takes Visa I would be impressed.