As y'all know, I'm trying to get AMEX in mid September (6 months after my failed app). After a recon with AMEX I was told to aim for credit score of 650-680 and try to remove one of my major derogs left (4 right now).
Progress: I have gone from 10-12 bad tradelines down to 4!!! I have removed 3 CA's (no CA's at all on report) and 2 CO's (only 1 CO reporting). Additionally, I added two secured cards in June. (prior to this, I did not have any credit cards in last 7 years - do have 2 old closed CC's still reporting in with perfect history)
My record on EX has the following negatives:
1. Sallie Mae 1x 30 day late
2. Sallie Mae 1x 90 day late, 1x90 day late 5 years ago
3. Verizon charge off (now paid but still reporting); and
4. Cap1 Auto (still a mess 5x 60 day and 10x 30 day)
Positives:
1. 2 new cc's with clean payment history
2. 7k less debt in loans since March
3. 18 old Sallie Mae loans all paid as agreed
4. 2 CU loans Paid as agreed
5. 8 year AAoA
6. 6 figure salary with very stable work history; and
7. Never filed BK, or had any liens, judgments or other public records.
The March denial letter listed these 4 factors as reason for denial:
1. Serious delinquency and public record or collection filed
2. Time since delinquency is too recent or unknown
3. Proportion of loan balances to loan amounts is too high; and
4. Too few accounts currently paid as agreed
Bottom line, have I rehabbed enough to get gold card? Should I apply for zync? My EX will probably be around 670 at app time. (Edit- oh, my original EX as indicated by AMEX pull was 542 in March 2012)
I'd wait a while. No idea how long it would take but that still seems pretty risky unless you just don't care about HPs.
Maybe try their pre-approval link in Jan to see if anything pops up. 
I didn't have any open cards at first app so I had 100% utilization. Now with new cards my utilization is 5%. My debt is about 100k. Car note is 390 per month and student loans is 600. My debt to income ratio is under 10%.
@drkaje wrote:I'd wait a while. No idea how long it would take but that still seems pretty risky unless you just don't care about HPs.
Maybe try their pre-approval link in Jan to see if anything pops up.
I agree, i'd wait at least 6 months then give it a shot!
6 more months or until my 6 months from last app is up. So it's december or September ?
@Duncanrr wrote:
6 more months or until my 6 months from last app is up. So it's december or September ?
At least January.
There just seems to be a lot more you can do (credit repair-wise) to be more attractive. None of the reasons for your denial have really changed.
Would it help to open another cc? I want to add third card in mix. Should I wait till I app for Amex or get one now that pulls TU in app?
More credit probably won't help. Just garden and send GW letters, and keep repairing. They may look at other CRAs on borderline cases, I don't know. With the scores in your signature and negatives listed (first post), I personally wouldn't go for it.
Even if you don't do repair, time will make some of the negatives seem less unattractive.