Do prepaid credits count as API spend toward increasing my usage tier?

I’m trying to understand if purchasing credits with the prepay option will count toward the API spend required to advance to a higher usage tier, or if I need to actually use those credits for API calls to increase my spend.

Here’s what I’m trying to do in detail:

On the Limits page, it says that my tokens per minute limit for gpt-4-1106-preview is 80,000 tokens. It appears that this means I cannot send requests using the full 128k token window. (Update: no longer true)

At the bottom of the Limits page, there’s an image indicating that after 14 days since the first successful payment, I’ll reach tier 4 when I have “at least $250 spent on the API since account creation”.

So, I’m wondering if I can simply purchase $250 in credits (minus any amount already spent) and have my usage tier automatically increased.

For context, the Billing overview indicates I’m on a “Pay as you go” account where I’ll be billed at the end of each calendar month for that month’s usage, though there is an option to buy credits.

Any clarification on whether prepaying counts as spending, or if only actual API usage does, would be greatly appreciated.