TheBOSman

I don't have autopay set up on any credit card account (although I am going to set it up on my utility bill now, I've finally given in). I only set up autopay when doing so gets me some sort of bonus (e.g. my cell phone bill is on autopay because I get extra data monthly that way). And thanks to FT, I have a lot of accounts...

RichardInSF

Because the terms keep changing to get worse, yet the annual fee doesn't change. Plat for the past few years is all about takeaways and given the newer competition from other high end cards, this seems ill-advised.

Plus there are card services that I no longer use much --I've mostly replaced FHR with Virtuoso, for example.

As I explained in my post, automated payment is not an option for me since I use my card for dual purposes and payments come from two different accounts, with the division between the two varying each month.

I'm not ready to trade down yet because I am slow about changing suppliers. But if this sort of thing keeps up, I'll get there.

United747

I agree. I also manually pay because then I know exactly how much is coming out and where I spent it.

mia

The annual fee was effectively reduced from $450 to $250 when the AA/CO/US lounge access was lost. The fee has not yet increased even though American Express is building their own lounge network, which their competitors will not have the scale to match. $250 is the same as when the card was introduced in 1984.

Enabling automated payments to protect against the possibility of late remittance does not preclude manual payments from other accounts. I have automated payments enabled on all of our American Express accounts, but I nearly always pay manually.

stimpy

Ok, sorry I had assumed otherwise. But in my experience most people from my age group do not trust nor believe in automatic payments. We've been paying on time for all such services for decades now so there is no reason to change. And bad experiences have taught us that there are many reasons to avoid automatic payments or tying our bank account to a US credit card.

Note in Europe there isn't any choice. Amex and other credit cards withdraw automatically at the end of the month. But since 100's of millions of accounts in Europe have done this for years, they have it working very well. That has not been the case in the US.

mia

I have had problems with some card issuers which do not automatically adjust the amount of the automated payment if a manual payment is made, but American Express has done well.

gooselee

I'm in my 30s - don't necessarily identify with the bulk of the "millenial" tag, but simply because of my birth year I seem to get lumped into that group pretty frequently by people who know nothing about me.

I have never set up autopay on anything. I like the control of manual payments. Was still putting paper checks in the mail to pay bills up until maybe 5 or 6 years ago.

All that said, I don't find it particularly burdensome to pay my Amex cards a few days earlier than I used to, and the ONE time a check got lost in the mail and arrived late, it took all of 5 minutes to call Amex and have them remove the late fee.

Sure, I'm probably missing out on a few bucks or interest by not having that money in my own account for that extra week, but it really hasn't been worthwhile for me to stress out over it.

LondonElite

Any indication on whether this apparent change has made or will make its way across to Europe? I've seen nothing on my UK Platinum account or statement, no wording has changed and no letters received.

stimpy

You know the UK isn't Europe, right? For Continental Europe, Amex takes the money directly out of your bank account right at the end of the month.

leaveamessage

No change (so far), and I really hope it doesn't make its way over.

My UK plat charge statement date is 4th, so I pay on the 3rd....sometimes late in the evening, although obviously earlier if I know I won't be able to. I don't do that autopay cobblers either

Visconti

Glad I noticed this thread, otherwise I'd just assume paying at the same time of the month as I have the past 25 years. My due date is now 5 days shorter.

I'm also one who avoids auto pay and prefer to manually initiate a push payment.

little bunny

I didn't notice this change and since I had pay over time balance, I got charged a late fee of $25 or something. I hope this doesn't affect my credit store....

My cycle end date is the 10th of each month and due date is the 5th. I paid on the 6th, just one day late... :/

radiolarian

There was a weird error a couple months ago. When the monthly billing cycle ended and the statement was ready, the due date shown was like 10 days in the past.

little bunny

Now it's back to "please pay by" both online and email...

jacob019

I have an AMEX Business Gold Rewards Charge Card. Statements say please pay by June 03, 14 days after my last statement closing date. Just called in and spoke with a CSR to explain that the short grace period was giving me reservations about using the card. He assured me that the please pay by date is just a suggestion and that I have until the next statement closing date, June 18th to make the payment. "So if I set up automatic payments for 25 days after the closing date, everything will be fine." "Yes, that will be fine."