Hi all - I just received an automated rejection from American Express when applying for the Gold Card after 1 year with the Optima card. Curious whether anyone has some insight or similar experiences to share.
Some background:
- Had 2 AmEx cards (both opened in late 2017 and closed in late 2019), SPG card (15k limit) and Delta Gold (5k limit).
- Fell behind on payments and ended up with ~1k charged off on the Delta card and $3k put into a payment plan on the SPG.
- With year end bonus in 2019, paid off the Delta card a couple weeks after charge off and received the Optima application. Optima card approved and then activated on 02/25/2020.
- Paid the payment plan on time for the SPG card (didn't see a need to overpay/complete early) and finished that off in January of this year. Was also offered an Optima card for that, but did not apply given I had one open already.
That brings us to now, where 13 months after opening the Optima card I was just automatically denied (without any HP) for the Gold charge card. I called in to see what the reason was, as the status check page returns an error, and was told it was due to "an active payment plan with American Express in the past 12 months." I figured this was the Optima program, so noted the exact dates & # of statements to the representative, who said they would into it. Received a follow-up email that their original, automatic decision was correct.
So, I believe the rejection was due to the payment plan for the SPG card - but, I read through the terms of that agreement and have trawled this board and don't see evidence/mention of that anywhere.
Any thoughts or someone that has gone through something like this?
