660ish floor (maybe 640 YMMV) for a charge card.
6 months revolving history.
These are minimums, of course more is better. The AF is waived on the Green for the first year anyway, but if it's not a card you'd rush out to use immediately anyway, can wait till later to see if you can either get into a revolver directly or increase your chances anyway. If Amex is a lender you have an interest in over the long term (and arguably everyone should as Amex is likely going to continue to have competitive rewards in the marketplace) then the biggest benefit to the first account is simply getting the membership date set... and that can happen at any point during the given year; ergo, waiting till October and taking a swing at the revolver you probably want might make more sense and if that fails, pick up the charge card 31 days after that just to get the date set.
@trumpet-205 wrote:AMEX uses their own internal credit score. They do not use FICO credit score.
If you want to get into AMEX I suggest apply the HHonor one then PC. That card is arguably has the easiest revolver approval criteria.
They use both, as do the majority of lenders. Multiple algorithms get run against the report data for a modern underwriting decision.
I am really wanting both the PRG and HHonors Surpass from AMEX. My current EX score is 665 with approx 36% util. It should show approx 15% util in aobut 2 weeks and <5% by mid June. My AAoA is about 5+ years and I have 13 inq on EX. 3 are from fall of '12, 7 fall of '13 and 3 from Feb-Mar of '14. (2 inq are for utilities, 1 from an apartment complex where I had to cosign for my son and 3 are previous AMEX inq) I do have several new accounts from fall of '13 and one from Feb '14. There is also an error on my report that I am working to have corrected. Assuming that error get corrected, would the decreased util help enough to qualify for either or both of the AMEX cards listed, or would it be better to just wait it out? That is really all I am wanting for my wallet and then I could just concentrate on maximizing what I have. I appreciate any comments and thoughts.
@Youngcredit23 wrote:
I can't speak on behalf of what Amex is looking for, but I can give you an idea with how my credit report looked when I was instantly approved for the BCE.
My Experian FICO was a 730, I had one other account [Chase Freedom 500CL], an AAOA of 6 months, and a utilization of 0%, and 1 other inquiry. That was able to get me instantly approved for the BCE with a CL of $2,300.
Hope this helps you out.
Did your Freedom report a 0 balance or was it just 0 at the time you applied? IIRC having only 1 card, and it reporting a zero balance is not as favorable as it reporting >1%.
