topic Re: Finally got the Amex ineligible for bonus screen in Credit Card Applications

Finally got the Amex ineligible for bonus screen

MrDisco99 — Tue, 04 Dec 2018 22:46:04 GMT

I'm getting close to finishing up the minimum spend for my Delta Gold Biz card, so I figured I should go ahead and apply for the next one now.

I'd just canceled my Hilton Ascend about a week and a half ago to make room. The account had just turned a year old. I just opened the Delta Gold Biz a little over a month ago.

I was going to go for the 125K points + $100 statement credit offered on the Hiton Biz through dummy booking. I pretended to book a room in Atlanta and clicked on the promo link then filed out the app. Up came the screen telling me due to the recent accounts opened or closed I am not eligible for the bonus. It said they did not check my credit and gave me the option to back out of the app, which I did.

I figured this would happen sooner or later. What I'm wondering is if it's likely due to the recent new account and Ascend closure and perhaps I'd be eligible again in the next few months? Or maybe it's more to do with my longer history and they're just putting the brakes on my bonuses in general.

I'm tempted to apply for the standard 125K offer to see if I get the same screen or not. I'm just wondering if it would negatively affect me if I do.

Re: Finally got the Amex ineligible for bonus screen

CreditCuriosity — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 00:14:43 GMT

Most likely your recent churning with Amex.. Give it some time and try in a few months and USE your existing Amex cards.. I have yet to get this screen and I have opened and closed alot of Amex cards in my time. I use the existing ones I have a decent amount though so i speculate the helps a bit, but they certainly don't like if you close it at the 1 year mark. It doesn't mean you wont ever be eligable again, just not for the time being whatever that might be.

Re: Finally got the Amex ineligible for bonus screen

RonM21 — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 00:43:53 GMT

@CreditCuriosity wrote:
Most likely your recent churning with Amex.. Give it some time and try in a few months and USE your existing Amex cards.. I have yet to get this screen and I have opened and closed alot of Amex cards in my time. I use the existing ones I have a decent amount though so i speculate the helps a bit, but they certainly don't like if you close it at the 1 year mark. It doesn't mean you wont ever be eligable again, just not for the time being whatever that might be.

I feel like there have been more examples of this popping up lately, and more from Amex, as if the Lenders are tightening up the reigns even more on these bonus offers in relation to the churning, etc.

Re: Finally got the Amex ineligible for bonus screen

kdm31091 — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 00:47:27 GMT

@RonM21 wrote:
@CreditCuriosity wrote:
Most likely your recent churning with Amex.. Give it some time and try in a few months and USE your existing Amex cards.. I have yet to get this screen and I have opened and closed alot of Amex cards in my time. I use the existing ones I have a decent amount though so i speculate the helps a bit, but they certainly don't like if you close it at the 1 year mark. It doesn't mean you wont ever be eligable again, just not for the time being whatever that might be.
I feel like there have been more examples of this popping up lately, and more from Amex, as if the Lenders are tightening up the reigns even more on these bonus offers in relation to the churning, etc.

I think algorithims (and human review teams too) are getting more and more sophisticated and we will see this with more lenders including Amex.

Re: Finally got the Amex ineligible for bonus screen

CreditCuriosity — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 01:15:47 GMT

@kdm31091 wrote:
@RonM21 wrote:
@CreditCuriosity wrote:
Most likely your recent churning with Amex.. Give it some time and try in a few months and USE your existing Amex cards.. I have yet to get this screen and I have opened and closed alot of Amex cards in my time. I use the existing ones I have a decent amount though so i speculate the helps a bit, but they certainly don't like if you close it at the 1 year mark. It doesn't mean you wont ever be eligable again, just not for the time being whatever that might be.
I feel like there have been more examples of this popping up lately, and more from Amex, as if the Lenders are tightening up the reigns even more on these bonus offers in relation to the churning, etc.
I think algorithims (and human review teams too) are getting more and more sophisticated and we will see this with more lenders including Amex.

Not a hard program to write per say it is just how they turn the dials the computer programming is rather simple. They can loosen it up via paramters or tighten it up, etc... no human interaction is taking place as that is a huge waste of money

Re: Finally got the Amex ineligible for bonus screen

AverageJoesCredit — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 02:17:56 GMT

Time to go churn Discover, Disco

Re: Finally got the Amex ineligible for bonus screen

NRB525 — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 11:31:06 GMT

Does AMEX have a count limit combining personal and business revolvers?

Re: Finally got the Amex ineligible for bonus screen

coldfusion — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 13:17:48 GMT

@NRB525 wrote:
Does AMEX have a count limit combining personal and business revolvers?

AMEX' public posturing has been that no such limit officially exists, but to address your question emperically the 5-revolvers-for-most-cardholders limit includes permutations that include a mix of personal and business cards.

Re: Finally got the Amex ineligible for bonus screen

MrDisco99 — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 13:29:12 GMT

Yes all evidence points to a 5 revolver limit, including personal and business cards. The few people who have 6 revolvers all seem to include at least one Hilton card converted from Citi.

Re: Finally got the Amex ineligible for bonus screen

MrDisco99 — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 21:02:45 GMT

So I went ahead and tried for a referral offer on the BBP and got the same message. I guess whatever blacklist status I’m in probably applies to all welcome bonus offers.

I will get the BBP at some point with or without the bonus but I’ll wait a bit and use the ED for general spend for now and see if I can get the BBP bonus later. If they still won’t let me have it after several months then I’ll just go without to get that 2x on everything.

As for the Hilton, that one was just for the bonus really. I’ll pass on that one until I’m back on their good side.

Re: Finally got the Amex ineligible for bonus screen

_NERD — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 22:05:58 GMT

I’m just learning about churning on this site. When closing an account to open another one, are you all letting go of that card’s credit limit? Or is it like Cap 1 where you can combine the credit limits of two Cap 1 cards and close the one you no longer want?

Re: Finally got the Amex ineligible for bonus screen

Anonymous — Thu, 06 Dec 2018 06:13:11 GMT

@MrDisco99 wrote:
So I went ahead and tried for a referral offer on the BBP and got the same message. I guess whatever blacklist status I’m in probably applies to all welcome bonus offers.

The ineligible message has been rampant lately and a lot of data has pointed to individuals with multiple Amex cards where spend was used solely for the SUB and card was SD. I think I read on DOC that if you place some spend on the SD cards then you could get lucky but YMMV. Others have reported not getting the SUB even after the app went through without the ineligible message yikes!

Re: Finally got the Amex ineligible for bonus screen

UncleB — Sat, 08 Dec 2018 09:22:26 GMT

The Amex "pop-up" is a bit of an enigma.

Not counting a Green card from the 90s, I've only closed two Amex cards and one of those didn't even have a bonus, yet I still got the pop-up when I applied for the Cash Magnet back in the summer (making it worse, the card I closed that did have a bonus was only 30k SkyPesos... hardly worth forfeiting future bonus offers).

It's been reported several places that after getting the pop-up if you put some extra usage through your existing Amex cards you can sometimes apply again and not get the pop-up, but it seems to be YMMV. (For what it's worth, there are some who report being denied bonuses even without getting the pop-up, but that's a different topic, and thread.) Also, our members on this site who are heavy Amex users don't seem to have a problem getting bonuses (i.e. no pop-up), so usage of existing accounts seems to definitely be a factor.

I've not tried applying for any Amex products since the Cash Magnet app so I can't provide a data point on when/if the bonuse offers return, but I hope that at some point I'm eligible again. Fun fact: the Cash Magnet was removed from my offers once I canceled the app, and it never returned. In a few days it will be six months since the canceled app, and for giggles I'll check to see if it returns.

Re: Finally got the Amex ineligible for bonus screen

UncleB — Sat, 08 Dec 2018 09:32:11 GMT

@_NERD wrote:
I’m just learning about churning on this site. When closing an account to open another one, are you all letting go of that card’s credit limit? Or is it like Cap 1 where you can combine the credit limits of two Cap 1 cards and close the one you no longer want?

There are two schools of thought on this.

Some people will move the limit to another card (reallocate) before closing so that their total available credit doesn't change when the card is closed.

Others feel that it makes future automated approvals more likely if they self-limit their exposure, so they don't reallocate - they close the card with the limit intact.

I've read of the second approach most often with people who are interested in Chase, since they can be tough on churning (in addition to 5/24) and many people feel that a lower existing exposure minimizes the chances of a manual review. (I'm not saying this is actually the case, but that's the logic some use when making this choice.)