Thread: Amex vs visa or mastercard

I was wondering if Amex is equal to visa and mastercard as far as scoring goes. In other words, if you have an amex card, will it increase your fico just as well as a visa or a mastercard provided you pay them on time of course. I also noticed that on the "high" credit column of my equifax report, there is an amount there for $1578. Now I know I have charged more than that in one month. In fact, my high charge ever for amex green was $2500 or so. Thus, does this factor in the credit usage ratio? If my current balance was $1500, and my high was reported as $1578, does that mean I am using 100% of my credit, consequently increasing my usage percentage? I truly do not know.

Originally posted by Slee
I was wondering if Amex is equal to visa and mastercard as far as scoring goes. In other words, if you have an amex card, will it increase your fico just as well as a visa or a mastercard provided you pay them on time of course. I also noticed that on the "high" credit column of my equifax report, there is an amount there for $1578. Now I know I have charged more than that in one month. In fact, my high charge ever for amex green was $2500 or so. Thus, does this factor in the credit usage ratio? If my current balance was $1500, and my high was reported as $1578, does that mean I am using 100% of my credit, consequently increasing my usage percentage? I truly do not know.

It make NO difference as far as I know...but if a credit card company "LOOKS" at your report with their EYES and sees a couple of AMEX accounts, they MAY push you closer to approval than denial...EXTRA BROWNIE POINTS...

Unfortunately the utilization is based on the number in the high credit column which changes from time to time. I have a 665 with Equifax and something like 2100 with Experian for high credit on my AMEX charge card. Assuming you are talking about a AMEX green, gold, or Platinum card, these are charge cards as opposed to credit cards and are great to have for your FICO score because they are in a different category of credit.

A good credit line mix would be as follows.

Revolving trade bank card (Visa, Master card, Discover, AMEX Blue, AMEX Optima) = 3 to 4
Revolving trade store card = 2
Charge card (AMEX green, AMEX gold, Diners club) = 1
mortgage = 1
installment loan = 1