Your Amex Charge Card Starts Acting Like a Credit Card on February 1. Check Your AutoPay Now.

If you carry an American Express charge card and you keep Pay Over Time switched off, Amex is about to switch it on for you. Permanently. On February 1, 2027, the setting locks to “Active” and the option to turn it off goes away.

For most cardholders that’s a shrug. For anyone whose AutoPay is set to “Minimum Payment Due,” it’s a bill with interest on it.

What Amex is changing

A charge card comes with one rule: pay the whole thing every month. Pay Over Time bends that rule. It lets purchases sit on a revolving balance, with a minimum payment and interest, like any credit card. You could turn it off, and plenty of people did, because forced pay-in-full is the whole point of a charge card.

Amex’s own FAQ says that choice ends February 1: “Pay Over Time will be permanently set to ‘Active’ and the option to change the setting will be disabled.” Doctor of Credit reported Monday that Amex has started emailing charge cardholders about it.

After the switch, new purchases land on your Pay Over Time balance automatically, up to your Pay Over Time limit. If you had the feature off, a new line shows up on your statement: Minimum Payment Due.

Here’s the catch

Read the AutoPay answer in Amex’s FAQ slowly. If your setting is off today and AutoPay is on Minimum Payment Due, “your AutoPay setting will remain Minimum Payment Due and interest will be charged on your remaining Pay Over Time balance, as well as on new eligible charges.”

Why would anyone have AutoPay on the minimum? Because with Pay Over Time off, every purchase sits in your Pay In Full balance, and Amex’s terms fold that entire balance into the minimum. The minimum was the whole bill. Picking it cost nothing.

After February 1, the same setting pays a slice and rolls the rest.

That’s the bank’s bet: nobody rereads an AutoPay screen they set up years ago.

What it costs

The Platinum Card lists a Pay Over Time APR of 19.74% to 28.74% variable. Say you put $3,000 a month on the card and AutoPay keeps sending only the minimum. A month of interest on $3,000 runs about $49 at the bottom of that range and about $72 at the top. Keep a balance that size rolling for a year and you’ve paid roughly $590 to $860 in interest, on a card that already charges an $895 annual fee.

There’s a second trap. Amex says that once you’re carrying a Pay Over Time balance, new eligible charges build interest from the transaction date. No grace period on new spending until you clear it.

Verdict: the change itself is questionable but survivable. Riding through it with AutoPay on the minimum is dumb math.

Do this now

Log in this week and open your AutoPay setting. If it says Minimum Payment Due, switch it to Statement Balance. Amex recommends exactly that, or Adjusted Balance if you have a Plan It plan running.

Then pay your statement balance in full before February 1. Amex’s FAQ says that’s how you avoid interest on new charges in the billing period when the change takes effect.

If you already pay the full statement balance every month, you don’t need to do anything else. An “Active” setting costs nothing when the whole statement balance goes out on time.

If you picked a charge card because it wouldn’t let you roll a balance, that guardrail is gone. Decide whether the card still earns its fee. Run any balance you’re carrying through our debt payoff calculator, and compare options on our credit cards hub and our best credit card picks.

The fine print

Under the terms that take effect February 1, a charge that would push you past your Pay Over Time limit goes to your Pay In Full balance instead, and Amex can raise or cut that limit at any time, even if you pay on time. Cash advances, certain insurance premiums and fees owed to Amex can’t go on Pay Over Time at all.

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