Newly opened accounts on report missing Amex

Anonymous · ‎01-03-2019

I subscribe to Experian and when looking at my credit report I only see one account opened in the last 12 months. What's missing is the Amex Gold I opened this past September. Is this not reported to Experian? Because it's a charge card and not credit card will this not show up? I guess the main question here is will this card count toward 5/24 when looking at Chase cards, which I will be doing in the coming months with a bit of a score increase.

Also, as a more general question, do Amex charge cards affect credit scores at all in any way? If so, how?

Thanks!

Anonymous · ‎01-03-2019

Amex charge cards have no effect on revolving utilization for most FICO models, with the exception of the EX mortgage score. (I am pretty sure that they do not affect the TU and EQ mortgage scores -- someone else may chime in who knows for sure.)

In all other respects Amex charge cards affect your score (e.g. they affect your age-related scoring factors, etc.). I believe they also affect the scoring factor "Number of accounts reporting a balance" just like a credit card would.

They might even affect CC utilization if you convert the charge card into something that permits you to carry a balance -- Amex gives you that option. I have not seen anyone test that and answer that definitively.

As far as the Chase 5/24 rule, that is based on the data on your credit report, so if the Amex card is not on the report it could not affect 5/24. The only exception I can imagine is if you had a Chase card that was opened recently but was not yet on the report -- perhaps Chase can see those and include them in 5/24.

It is common for a new Amex card to take a very long time to appear on reports. People have reported it taking 100 days or even a bit longer. Do you have EQ and TU reports pulled during Nov and Dec? If so does the Amex account appear on them and if so when did it appear?

Anonymous · ‎01-03-2019

@Anonymous wrote:
Amex charge cards have no effect on revolving utilization for most FICO models, with the exception of the EX mortgage score. (I am pretty sure that they do not affect the TU and EQ mortgage scores -- someone else may chime in who knows for sure.)

In all other respects Amex charge cards affect your score (e.g. they affect your age-related scoring factors, etc.). I believe they also affect the scoring factor "Number of accounts reporting a balance" just like a credit card would.

They might even affect CC utilization if you convert the charge card into something that permits you to carry a balance -- Amex gives you that option. I have not seen anyone test that and answer that definitively.

As far as the Chase 5/24 rule, that is based on the data on your credit report, so if the Amex card is not on the report it could not affect 5/24. The only exception I can imagine is if you had a Chase card that was opened recently but was not yet on the report -- perhaps Chase can see those and include them in 5/24.

It is common for a new Amex card to take a very long time to appear on reports. People have reported it taking 100 days or even a bit longer. Do you have EQ and TU reports pulled during Nov and Dec? If so does the Amex account appear on them and if so when did it appear?

Thanks for the info. All very helpful. Just checked EQ and TU via Credit Karma and the Amex isn't on there. Based on the potential 100 day lag you mention maybe it will show up in a month or so. I'll keep checking. Interesting though. Amex charge cards are so weird with regards to credit reports.