topic Re: Easiest AMEX approval odds? in Credit Card Applications

Easiest AMEX approval odds?

Anonymous — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 19:28:01 GMT

Hey

I want to get into the AMEX eco-system. Which card do you think is the easiest to get? . . . Just want to get my foot in the door.

Re: Easiest AMEX approval odds?

Anonymous — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 19:40:23 GMT

Hilton and delta cards are the easiest, word of caution, there are reports of customer service telling people here that they are tightening the belt because of covid, with the specific score of 750 mentioned, now that probably doesn't mean the cobranded cards, but if you are borderline it will be most likely a 1k limit that could be hard to grow ymmv

In the amex ecosystem, at least in normal times easiest to hardest underwriting are

Cobranded -> charge cards -> core revolvers

Their pre-qualification tool is fairly solid give it a shot and see what it comes up with

Re: Easiest AMEX approval odds?

Anonymous — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 19:43:56 GMT

Thanks for the info. I think I'll wait a few months, my middle score is 751, to close for comfort.

Re: Easiest AMEX approval odds?

Anonymous — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:39:11 GMT

The cobranded cards are "generally" the easiest to get followed by the charge cards, followed by their core cards.

I recommend checking their prequalification site as that is pretty solid.

As for the CSR telling people that a score of 750 is needed.... I'd take that with a grain of salt.

I was approved for their Green charge card with a TU score of 697. NPSL and a Pay over time limit of $11,000. This was the 3rd week of March for my approval.

Regardless, Good luck if you decide to apply!!

Re: Easiest AMEX approval odds?

AllZero — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:50:57 GMT

IIRC for the core cards, minimum score 670 for Experian FICO 8. Not sure in this current climate.

Re: Easiest AMEX approval odds?

AllZero — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:02:25 GMT

In addition, check AmEx prequal site and see if you have any offers. You can use that as a gauge.

Re: Easiest AMEX approval odds?

pinkandgrey — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:48:42 GMT

Honestly I would just check the prequal site. It tends to be reliable, so if you're prequaled, you're probably safe. I very recently got an Amex ED without issue. I'd be pretty surprised if you got denied, unless you have a ton of recent inquiries/credit seeking or something.

Re: Easiest AMEX approval odds?

Anonymous — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 22:08:25 GMT

I do have 2 recent inquiries. .

Re: Easiest AMEX approval odds?

pinkandgrey — Sun, 26 Apr 2020 01:07:41 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I do have 2 recent inquiries. .

That's not really very many. Check the prequal site and see what pops up!

Re: Easiest AMEX approval odds?

seattletravels — Sun, 26 Apr 2020 14:18:25 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Thanks for the info. I think I'll wait a few months, my middle score is 751, to close for comfort.

Middle score doesn't matter. They pull Experian. If you have a 750 you should be fine for any of their cards. Check their prequal site.

Re: Easiest AMEX approval odds?

Anonymous — Sun, 26 Apr 2020 14:29:39 GMT

So I just checked my EX score it's down to 738. (I did apply for a few cards last week) Thanks for all the advice. The pre qual site recommends the Hilton, BCE, and the Cash Magnet cards.

Re: Easiest AMEX approval odds?

Anonymous — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:52:50 GMT

I'm hovering around 700, have all the AMEXs I need but check the prequal site periodically just for giggles. It used to show several cards on any given visit to the site, in the past month, it only shows upgrades for my Delta and green cards, no new ones. Clearly they don't want to "expand our relationship" in any meaningful way.

Re: Easiest AMEX approval odds?

Msjonesclt — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 00:02:24 GMT

I'm thinking that 750 May be a stretch, I too apped last month and received the green card with NPSL and large POT with a score of 692.

Re: Easiest AMEX approval odds?

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 01:47:39 GMT

Amex is raising underwriting standards across the platform because of the virus meltdown.

Re: Easiest AMEX approval odds?

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 01:58:43 GMT

Thanks for the reply. Do you know of any new data points about that? Some earlier mentions that a EX score of 750 is where you need to be.

Re: Easiest AMEX approval odds?

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 02:04:08 GMT

No data points.

News reports indicate a massive tightening of belts.

Re: Easiest AMEX approval odds?

MomoMango — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 02:35:39 GMT

Be careful with the pre-approvals, I currently have someone as an AU on my Hilton Surpass card.They were pre-approved for the same card I have. But when they applied, they were denied because of their loan (They didn’t pay enough off yet).

They tried applying before this all happened, and their score was 745 with a 6 month credit history. Denied because their history was too short. Which was a long shot because I was able to get the Surpass with no history.

They have a Discover card and AUs on my Hilton and Citi. I don't know what their score was before the inquires, but right now it's 700 for Experian.

Re: Easiest AMEX approval odds?

Oops_I_Did_It_Again — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 06:20:37 GMT

I am also somewhat mystified by my "Amex Situation" at the moment, but I wanted to take a crack at answering the OPs and other related questions. A Youtube credit guru I kind of trust was willing to take a wild guess at how the Coronavirus economic meltdown would effect the market, and what he said seemed as good as anything else I've heard. He indicated that based on his having gone through the 2008 financial crisis, very generally, requirements for credit applications would probably go up by about 50 Fico points.

Who knows for sure (nobody) but that estimate is interesting and might be something to consider in trying to evaluate what banks might or might not be willing to accept. An interesting data point I personally encountered: I had been checking in once in a while to see which HSBC cards would pre-qualify (or whatever they call it) for their Gold and Cash back cards. I had been qualified for quite a while for both of those. But when I checked on April 13, they dis-qualified me! HSBC sends a denial letter even for their pre-qualification app. The noted a EQ "Fico" score of 761 and denial reason of 'two many inquires in recent years' for EQ where I have 3 inquires in the last two years, none in the last six months, and otherwise completely clean file. So that's probably a BS reason -- the real reason is that they require some signficantly better combination of credit history length and score than they did previously. I say significantly because my credit has improved by at least 30 points since I had been initially pre-qualified, and I haven't applied for any new credit or borrowed any money (my utilization is 2%, AAOA=1Y, AOOA=2Y). So that bank has really raised the bar a whole bunch, at least for me!

Re: Easiest AMEX approval odds?

SweetCreditObsession — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 08:26:18 GMT

Thanks for the caution @MomoMango .

Re: Easiest AMEX approval odds?

SweetCreditObsession — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 08:28:26 GMT

That's very interesting @Oops_I_Did_It_Again . Thanks for sharing.