topic Re: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card in Credit Card Applications

Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card

Anonymous — Sun, 10 Sep 2017 21:11:53 GMT

Hi,

I'm a longtime and frequent Amazon user and Prime member and Amazon is really tempting me with their Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card. I understand it's Chase and it is my understanding that Chase is really hard to get. What is the magic?

FICO scores between 710 and 720

Credit history approaching 2 years of age.

2 credit cards (FirstBankCard and Barcley); total util somewhere between 31 and 39 % (FBC higher, ~50, than Barcley).

1 (fairly small) car loan, at around 50% paid off

No late payments, monthly statements always in full or more. No other things on my reports.

Relatively small salary (25k) because I'm just a student

Should I even bother trying?

Re: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card

Anonymous — Sun, 10 Sep 2017 20:35:27 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Hi,

I'm a longtime and frequent Amazon user and Prime member and Amazon is really tempting me with their Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card. I understand it's Chase and it is my understanding that Chase is really hard to get. What is the magic?

FICO scores between 710 and 720
Credit history approaching 2 years of age.
2 credit cards (FirstBankCard and Barcley); total util somewhere between 31 and 39 % (FBC higher, ~50, than Barcley).
1 car loan, at around 50% paid off

Should I even bother trying?

If you can bring your util wayyyyy down, you shouldn't have any problems whatsoever.

Re: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card

Anonymous — Sun, 10 Sep 2017 20:41:44 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

If you can bring your util wayyyyy down, you shouldn't have any problems whatsoever.

That's the hard part, unfortuantely. I use Barcley to finance something (if I had the money I wouldn't have needed to finance it in the first place) and with the other I've been struggeling a little lately to lower the util, but too many things came up (vet costs, car repair costs...you name it). I'm only a student, so no huge income to just pay it off. I will as soon as I can, of course.

I don't plan on putting huge util on the Amazon card (mostly shifting those I have been paying on amazon with my other CC). But the current $70 giftcard is extremely tempting

Re: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card

AverageJoesCredit — Sun, 10 Sep 2017 22:50:24 GMT

Dont worry about your salary thats fine. I say if you dont mind the hp and you want it shoot for it Its only a hp. Sure lowering your utiliization is ideal but if you cant right now and you are ok with a possible denial, go for it, you might get suprised. Best of luck

Re: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Sep 2017 00:11:03 GMT

I did it two weeks ago. I just put in the application. I have lots of new applications for travel hacks- lots over 10. Credit score is about 771. It took them two weeks to respond and I didn't get an instant response.
I waited and then an email popped up saying I got approved for 9k and a 70.00 credit in my Amazon account.

In my opinion. I would get maybe one or two cards, possibly from AmEx to get that utilization down. The more credit line you have the less it will be. Not saying to go apply for a ton of stuff. Just one or two.

Re: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Sep 2017 00:15:23 GMT

@AverageJoesCredit wrote:
Dont worry about your salary thats fine. I say if you dont mind the hp and you want it shoot for it Its only a hp. Sure lowering your utiliization is ideal but if you cant right now and you are ok with a possible denial, go for it, you might get suprised. Best of luck

Thanks. How would a denial impact my score now and in the long run? How about applications in the future?

I'd rather not have a denial...because I assume it just doesn't look good and will make things even harder in the future, no?

@Anonymous wrote:
I did it two weeks ago. I just put in the application. I have lots of new applications for travel hacks- lots over 10. Credit score is about 771. It took them two weeks to respond and I didn't get an instant response.
I waited and then an email popped up saying I got approved for 9k and a 70.00 credit in my Amazon account.

In my opinion. I would get maybe one or two cards, possibly from AmEx to get that utilization down. The more credit line you have the less it will be. Not saying to go apply for a ton of stuff. Just one or two.

Thanks for your input! But, 771 is quite different story than 710-720 And any new CC will have hard pulls which eventually will negatively affect mt CS.

I think I have 1 HP still affecting my score (Barcleycard, which I applied to in 11/16). The other two (FBC and Car loan) should have fallen off, but still how up on my report (<24 months, but >12 months). However, I did have an automatic CL increase for my FBC earlier this year and I assume they pulled the CS?

Re: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card

BurgeoningHope — Mon, 11 Sep 2017 05:31:02 GMT

This is one of those times where the Shopping Cart Trick (SCT) might be worth doing, just to pull your util down.

The steps are everywhere on the web, an on this board, and the details are important. But as an overview, you go to one of a number of stores that have Comenity as the bank running their store card. Make sure you allow popups on the site. Poke around the site for a while, put some stuff in your shopping cart, then head for the checkout.

At some point during the process, with your scores you may well get a popup congratulating you on your preapproved store card. Go ahead and do the signup process, and enjoy your new larger overall credit line, no hard pull against your CR! You don't actually have to buy the thing/s in your shopping cart.

Again, the details are important. Don't do it until you've done some reading.

Choose your store/s carefully. Overstock.com famously gives monster lines relative to the others and that was certainly the case for me. I got north of $4k from them, and $750 from a clothing store. Some people go nuts and try to do all the stores. There are dangers in doing that. But doing one or two really helped me out.

Then I recommend either sock-drawering the cards, or gently using them to work on your payment history. Just keep their util low, and they'll help pull down those other utils you have, all without hard pulls.

Chase is fairly conservative, but I got my Amazon Visa a couple of weeks ago with an AAoA of 4 months and scores similar to yours, but my util is 8%.

Good luck!

Re: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card

Total80sKid — Mon, 11 Sep 2017 06:04:34 GMT

Also be prepared for a $350 SL on Overstock like I did with the same score another user here had and got a $4k SL

Re: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card

HeavenOhio — Mon, 11 Sep 2017 11:38:41 GMT

I was approved last October with a score about like yours, two new accounts in the previous six weeks, and one card that was maxed. This was before I knew anything about utilization, the advantage of most cards reporting a zero balance, or Chase being picky about new accounts.

I was approved, but it was for a low limit ($2,500). I'd have been better off waiting. Chase bumped my limit by $1,500 after four months. I don't know if it was because my scores and reports were in better shape or simply because I was using the card and paying in full.

My score is now just below 800 instead of just above 700, simply because I now know what I'm doing. And my newest account is seven or eight months old. I wonder what kind of limit I'd have gotten had I applied under the current circumstances.

Re: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 01:19:27 GMT

If someone is at a healthy utilization percentage that's outside of the "good" range (29%+) and they are unable to pay it off for whatever reason, IMO the last thing they should be looking to do is take on more credit. Yes there are exceptions like scooping up a 0% BT card, but putting the exceptions aside it simply isn't a smart financial move to take on more potential debt if you are unable to pay off the debt you currently have.

Re: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 01:37:31 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
If someone is at a healthy utilization percentage that's outside of the "good" range (29%+) and they are unable to pay it off for whatever reason, IMO the last thing they should be looking to do is take on more credit. Yes there are exceptions like scooping up a 0% BT card, but putting the exceptions aside it simply isn't a smart financial move to take on more potential debt if you are unable to pay off the debt you currently have.

Generalisations are fun, aren't they?

One CC: it's a 18month interest-free I use to finance a computer. I'm always paying off more than the monthly minimum, but as a student with a fairly low income living in an extremly expensive place I'm glad I have this option of small payments instead of one (or few) big ones, especially when I was in dire need of a new computer (yes, I could have just saved, but I did need this device for work). I'm no fan of having debt, not at all, but it was a trade-off between having debt and not having something I did need in a timely manner

The other CC is my day-to-day CC. I always pay the full balance on time each month (so much for not being able to pay debt), but I have enabled auto-pay, so it's always almost a month between the statement and the actual payment. Of course I continue to use it in the meantime and come statement-day, have a new utilization. I try to lower it, of course, but sometimes just life happens and you' re glad you can delay that payment for a month.

Also, we're not talking of huge numbers of credit nor debt. We're talking of $1,300 CL.

(Hence, the aforementioned $2,500 by another user is not even close to a "low limit" for me)

Re: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 01:45:24 GMT

That being said, does anyone know which score they pull? I get conflicting info when I do a search

Re: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card

fltireguy — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 13:04:39 GMT

Chase pulls whoever they feel like.. Sometimes they double pull as well. And it doesn't seem to matter where you live geographically either

Re: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 13:10:44 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
That being said, does anyone know which score they pull? I get conflicting info when I do a search

That's because there is no concrete answer here. Look at the credit pulls database and search for Chase Amazon and you'll see that all bureaus are used by Chase. As indicated above, they are known to pull 2B quite often.

As for the debt discussion, I still maintain that if someone is unable to pay off the debt they have now that taking on more isn't a smart financial move. Yes there are exceptions like mortgages and car loans, but in most of those cases equity would be the bail out if it really came down to it which would eliminate the debt. It's just my opinion stated above and it isn't one that everyone has to agree with.

Re: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card

digitek — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 16:05:55 GMT

I agree with you 100% Brutal that is solid advice.

It is twice as easy to get into debt as it is to get out of it. It is really easy for me to spend over my budget, but really hard for me to spend less than my budget so that I can repay exces debt I took on when I went over my budget.

CC's are strange though, because if the OP plays it right (PIF every month) then this card could actually save them money =D

If it matters, I have 2 Chase cards and they double pulled EXP and EQ both times when I applied, but it could be any of them.

Re: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card

LavishSpending — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 03:30:45 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
That being said, does anyone know which score they pull? I get conflicting info when I do a search

For the Amazon Prime, Chase pulled my TU and EX last year (denied). Just last month they pulled TU and EX again for Freedom Unlimited. I just applied for the Amazon again two days ago, and I'm at 4 pulls now and pending app. Typically you won't have that happen, but there are some reports of things like that. I just created a post about my case today.

Re: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card

LavishSpending — Fri, 29 Sep 2017 01:10:27 GMT

Actually I didn't have 4 pulls. It was 2. TrustedID.com is sloppy, and I updated my other post with more detail.

Re: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Sep 2017 06:10:27 GMT

Chase is tough, but I think the Amazon card is one of the easier ones to get. A App will really affect you much and a denial won't hurt you at all. A friend of mine got this card and he had two other cards that were 100% maxced out. I would give it a shot. You should see if they have any promo's going on. I.e. Balance transfers for signup bonus points. The 5% discount on everything Amazon is great. I also have the store card, Limit is somewhere near $13,000 and the Chase Amazon card is just under $20k I believe. When I applied, I got a $4,000 CL, I used it a lot for a few months paying it off in full and then asked for a CLI and they increased it to $15,000. Most recently they gave me a few more grand with a letter that came in the mail. I just to call and approve the CLI.

Let us know the outcome,

Re: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card

LavishSpending — Fri, 29 Sep 2017 09:17:21 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
You should see if they have any promo's going on. I.e. Balance transfers for signup bonus points.

The current promo I kept seeing and eventually applied for is a $70 Amazon instant gift card.

Re: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card

Anonymous — Mon, 09 Oct 2017 09:20:44 GMT

I went for it and finally applied with scores in the high 730s and one 740 (Experian, which they pulled, don't know if they pullend any of the other) and a util <30%. Unfortunately I didn't get an instant decision but a 30 day notification. Is that a bad sign? How can I check the status?