American Express made a change to their system so that after making a payment in the online login or app your balance and available credit is updated instantly, even before they’ve fully processed the payment from your bank. This is true for both personal and small business cards.
I love this new feature – previously only Citi instantly updated your balance at time of payment. Someone mentions that Capital One just made a change to process payments instantly as well; if anyone can confirm, please let us know.
This helps for a few things:
- Instantly frees up your credit line.
- Psychologically, I like seeing the payment documented there as a line item in my transactions right away and seeing my balance as $0 right away. It also helps avoid double paying the same bill (though they always had a message there to try avoiding that).
- It might help with credit reports that if you make a payment right before statement close the balance might not show on your credit report, whereas with other issues it might show since the actual time of payment isn’t until a day or two later.
Hat tip to Jaybeltran805
Just made a payment with capital one and it updated the balance immediately. Go ahead and try it if you’d like. Must be a new thing as it didn’t work a few weeks ago.
For me, it always updated the available credit, but didn’t update the balance. I think folks who are saying this always happened are referring to the available credit.
Amex has this already for years
My credit limit instantly restored upon payment as long as I can remember with Amex.
“previously only Citi instantly updated your balance at time of payment” – If you pay from a checking account from the same bank as your credit card issuer, pretty much all banks process payments instantly (internal payment).
This hasn’t been the case for me with BoA, it still takes 1-2 days to update (did this today actually). Not sure about other banks though
I’m not sure about BoA, but I’m sure it works that way for several others like Chase and SunTrust. However, it may matter which way you pay. For the instant payment you may need to “pull” from the credit card, not “push” from the checking account’s bill pay feature. In other words, use the pay button on the credit card page rather than the bill pay feature on the checking that allows you to pay any account.
This has always been the case for me with Amex as long as I can recall. I had no idea it wasn’t the case for everyone.
Amex releases available credit instantly for years now. I can say that with lot of authority. The thing they changed now is showing the updated balance real-time.
That’s possible – most people just assume what is shown is what is available, but it’s plausible that internally it’s always been freed up immediately. (I’d also mention that it’s hard to know for certain based on spending when it gets freed up since they sometimes allow you to go over your allotted limit.)
Thanks for informing us of your authority to say that.
It’s about time. When I pay a credit card bill, Amex is the only provider whose payment posts (not just pending) in my bank account the same day that I pay the bill–so quick to grab my money but not so quick to reflect the payment on their end.
Been like this for the last 10 years, why is this news on all major miles sites?
I don’t think you are correct – it was never that way for me or all the others who are seeing it now.
Ok, maybe Amex would flag certain accounts. I remember the days of pounding OBC till it gets declined with insufficient credit and then paying in store and it works 10 seconds later.
Maybe it worked even though the online login did not show available balance? I’m fairly certain that no one was seeing it show up available instantly.
Not really, almost immediately after payment, it should it in available credit limit.
FWIW, this is how it has worked with me with AMEX for years. I’ve been with them for 17 years with the same card… perhaps that has something to do with it, I dunno.