Will "upgrading" my credit card affect my credit score?

I've read on the MyFico forums that to maximize your score, you should have a mix of credit (revolving, installment loans and mortgage). They say the sweet spot on credit card utilization seems to be having zero balances on all credit cards and letting 1 report a balance of between 1 and 9%. So as long as you're paying your credit card off before the statement date, you should be getting the maximum credit score you can. This will change from month to month if you still have high balances when the statement reports. As for your new credit card; unless you opened a new account, you probably won't see any difference in score. If you closed one account and opened another, your score will likely drop due to lowering your average age of accounts. If you got a card with a higher limit, your score would probably go up, as your utilization percentage would drop due to the higher balance.

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As long as they will give you an increase without doing a hard inquiry, the higher limit will only help you. If they do a hard pull, that will hurt your score for a year but not very much. I would go for the increase.

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If you ask a credit card company for an increase, they will almost always do a hard pull of credit. I'm a banker for one of the larger banks in the US and I have to deal with credit cards a lot.

What kind of AMEX card do you have? I know mine is a charge card with no pre-set spending limit and thus reports differently than a typical credit card. That said, I know AMEX does offer traditional credit cards. Long run, increasing your credit limit could definitely help you out if your AMEX is one of their credit cards. Short run, the hit will marginally drop your credit score.

Basically, if you're going to try to get a big loan in the next 3 months or so, hold off until after. Otherwise, do it.

My AMEX gold has an annual fee of $125 which kind of sucks. I also have a Chase Freedom and Discover Cash Back which both offer 5% back on different categories with no annual fee. Citi has some decent cards as well. As a result, I hardly use my AMEX... Maybe one lunch a month. You might want to check out other options if you pay your bill off monthly.

I don't have any plans on getting my 1st loan until the end of next year.... So that has brought on this

I had the delta platinum Amex which has a $150 dollar annual fee and upgraded to the reserve for not much more than I paid for the platinum version.... I fly enough this card pays for itself with Free bags and a companion pass once a year

I like the security Amex gives me and the 5% cash back I would probably only make around $200 back a year. I just don't buy a lot of things from those select categories.

Thanks for all the feedback folks