topic Re: What is it gonna take to crack Amex? in Credit Cards

What is it gonna take to crack Amex?

Anonymous — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 02:05:16 GMT

I cannot get approved for an AMEX to save my life. My EX score is OK it's 685... admittedly I do have a handful of new accounts and inquiries. My overall utilization is 23% however a couple cards are a lot higher and those will be paid down in the coming months. Each denial basically lists ALL those reasons but I am wondering if maybe some of them are just scapegoat tack on reasons and AMEX is really sensitive to something on my profile. Any tips?

Re: What is it gonna take to crack Amex?

Anonymous — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 02:07:03 GMT

Score is within approval range. Utilization is bit high but you say couple cards are higher. How high? What else on your credit file is holding your score down?

Re: What is it gonna take to crack Amex?

mitchblue — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 02:08:31 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I cannot get approved for an AMEX to save my life. My EX score is OK it's 685... admittedly I do have a handful of new accounts and inquiries. My overall utilization is 23% however a couple cards are a lot higher and those will be paid down in the coming months. Each denial basically lists ALL those reasons but I am wondering if maybe some of them are just scapegoat tack on reasons and AMEX is really sensitive to something on my profile. Any tips?

You pretty much said it, utitilaztion and score. Get one down and the other up and should help.

Re: What is it gonna take to crack Amex?

Callandra — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 02:09:43 GMT

Pay down your cards, let 1-9% report. Which card were you applying for?

Re: What is it gonna take to crack Amex?

Anonymous — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 02:10:19 GMT

Two cards are right at about 60-70% right now. I am thinking that is why. I have nothing negative on my report either.

Re: What is it gonna take to crack Amex?

Anonymous — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 02:11:28 GMT

I tried for the PRG no go, and then the BCE. Also no go. I am definitely going to just work on paying everything down below 10% and see where that takes me.

Re: What is it gonna take to crack Amex?

JSS3 — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 02:12:02 GMT

I don't find that Amex is particularly inq sensitive or even thin file sensitive. They DO watch that utilization though. Mine once had 23 overall UTIL, less inqs, less accounts=DENIED. Now with 8% overall UTIL, more inq, and more accounts(like 15 in one year)= APPROVED.

Re: What is it gonna take to crack Amex?

Bankrupt2019 — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 02:14:11 GMT

@mitchblue wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
I cannot get approved for an AMEX to save my life. My EX score is OK it's 685... admittedly I do have a handful of new accounts and inquiries. My overall utilization is 23% however a couple cards are a lot higher and those will be paid down in the coming months. Each denial basically lists ALL those reasons but I am wondering if maybe some of them are just scapegoat tack on reasons and AMEX is really sensitive to something on my profile. Any tips?
You pretty much said it, utitilaztion and score. Get one down and the other up and should help.

Just make sure it's the utilization going down and the score going up, not the other way around.....

Re: What is it gonna take to crack Amex?

mitchblue — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 02:18:13 GMT

@Bankrupt2019 wrote:
@mitchblue wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
I cannot get approved for an AMEX to save my life. My EX score is OK it's 685... admittedly I do have a handful of new accounts and inquiries. My overall utilization is 23% however a couple cards are a lot higher and those will be paid down in the coming months. Each denial basically lists ALL those reasons but I am wondering if maybe some of them are just scapegoat tack on reasons and AMEX is really sensitive to something on my profile. Any tips?
You pretty much said it, utitilaztion and score. Get one down and the other up and should help.
Just make sure it's the utilization going down and the score going up, not the other way around.....

Of course. I guess I could have written that better

Re: What is it gonna take to crack Amex?

Bankrupt2019 — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 02:21:48 GMT

@mitchblue wrote:
@Bankrupt2019 wrote:
@mitchblue wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
I cannot get approved for an AMEX to save my life. My EX score is OK it's 685... admittedly I do have a handful of new accounts and inquiries. My overall utilization is 23% however a couple cards are a lot higher and those will be paid down in the coming months. Each denial basically lists ALL those reasons but I am wondering if maybe some of them are just scapegoat tack on reasons and AMEX is really sensitive to something on my profile. Any tips?
You pretty much said it, utitilaztion and score. Get one down and the other up and should help.
Just make sure it's the utilization going down and the score going up, not the other way around.....
Of course. I guess I could have written that better

I knew what you were saying

Re: What is it gonna take to crack Amex?

Anonymous — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 02:22:04 GMT

Thank you for the advice. I think the smoking gun is my utilization.

Re: What is it gonna take to crack Amex?

NRB525 — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 02:28:18 GMT

@JSS3 wrote:
I don't find that Amex is particularly inq sensitive or even thin file sensitive. They DO watch that utilization though. Mine once had 23 overall UTIL, less inqs, less accounts=DENIED. Now with 8% overall UTIL, more inq, and more accounts(like 15 in one year)= APPROVED.

I'll take the Utilization concern to task

In June 2013 when I got approved for the Delta Gold at $2k, my open balances were $49k on $96k CL, including closed accounts, so overall just over 50% utilization, both BofA cards at 90% utilization ($8.8k and $12.7k limits at the time), 4 other substantial limit cards at over 50% utilization.

Now, in my favor, the $49k was down from $116k in only 4 years, so maybe I got props for that. IDK.

So yeah, no, I don't think utilization, as a static data point, is a deal killer with AMEX YMMV.

Re: What is it gonna take to crack Amex?

JSS3 — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 02:38:33 GMT

@NRB

I think you're an exception. My bro had 69% UTIL on ONE card, 18% overall. All cards below 30%. No baddies. Decent income. 3 yrs AAoA= DENIED for BCE but countered with Serve.

Re: What is it gonna take to crack Amex?

someg33k — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 03:12:26 GMT

I was just approved for PRG and BCP last week (my first Amex cards). My EX score at the time was 710 with new accounts and inquiries showing. But my overall utilization was at 3%.

Hope that helps.

Re: What is it gonna take to crack Amex?

NRB525 — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 03:40:53 GMT

@JSS3 wrote:
@NRB

I think you're an exception. My bro had 69% UTIL on ONE card, 18% overall. All cards below 30%. No baddies. Decent income. 3 yrs AAoA= DENIED for BCE but countered with Serve.

I did qualify my story with YMMV

The likely difference is the pay down from stratospheric levels to merely nosebleed levels of CC debt. At the time of this first AMEX app, a few cards had 15 years history, active or closed.

My point was, isolating Utilization as an Always and Everywhere condition that AMEX would exclude an app, doesn't work. It's part of the overall view to the credit file.

A new account, where the cardholder has 6 months on a $3k card and shows $2,900 open balance, yeah, I could see that perhaps causing some issues with AMEX.