My friend has a Amex Gold Account. She has a Sign and Travel & Extended Purchase Account. She'd like to know if there is a limit on how much you can charge. She has a 7k balance on it already.
Just Me- The Extended Payment Option plans (S&T is for airline, hotel, cruise, etc. types of charges, while Extended Payment is for any single charge >$300) do not have a "pre-set limit" but are "approved based on personal resources as known to us, past payment and spending records, blah-blah-blah". At those interest rates (at least for mine, something like prime+12%), I don't think they're a good idea. Amex will transfer balances from Gold/Green cards to an Optime, Blue or other credit product. You should be able to get much better rates on those cards vs. Extended Pay Option. Also keep in mind, Extended Pay doesn't report as a separate account on the credit reports - it just keeps your card balance looking really high- which can scare the poop out of lenders and muck up your FICO score (you always look like your balance is close to your high credit). I had a $1700 balance on my S&T and just paid it off -- it is convienent to have (if cash flow gets short and you don't want to pay the whole Amex bill off this month) but it's expensive money. -mj
You ARE Exactly right MJ! I do know those rates are very high! AMEX hopes you carry a large balance on these additional line offers. I had not thought about how it would show on the credit reports! Thanks for the information - dogman
Re: You ARE Exactly right MJ! Amex reports charge cards in a weird way - they show as either being "open" or "30-day" or as having a term of "1-month" (which is correct, it's a charge account), but on Experian, it also reports as REVolving. I'm looking at Blue and Gold cards on my report: AMEX Address: PO BOX 7871 FORT LAUDERDALE, FL 33329 Status: Open/Never late. Type: Revolving Reported Since: 10/1999 Terms: NA Credit Limit/Original Amount: NA High Balance: $8,747 Recent Balance: $1,362 AMEX Address: PO BOX 7871 FORT LAUDERDALE, FL 33329 Status: Open/Never late. Type: Revolving Reported Since: 12/1999 Terms: 1 Months Credit Limit/Original Amount: NA High Balance: $4,645 Recent Balance: $1,510 The average bear should be able to figure out that #2 is the charge card and #1 is a revolving card, but I'm not so sure FICO is calculating the score with that info? It doesn't matter since I've got the balance down, but when S&T balance was up there, it looked like it was being utilized at 80-90%. Anyone have any good info on how Fico calculates utilization when no "limit" is reported (just high balance)? Thx- mj
Re: You ARE Exactly right MJ! No, but I have a suggestion. Write to Fair Isaac with your question via planetfeedback.
