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Do you have any other card accounts? Chase will auto-deny the CSP if you have 5 new cards in the last 24 months.
Also, Amex charge cards are actually really easy to get approved for. You're required to pay in full every month, so they don't really care how you handle revolving balances.
@Anonymous wrote:Ooh, these are fantastic tips! Thanks! I definitely feel more encouraged now.
I never thought about Amex using the same hard pull if I applied for another card. I was actually eyeing the Blue Cash Everyday card and love that it's a $0 annual fee. Perhaps I should try?
BCE was my first Amex in my current credit lifetime (don't ask me about 10 years ago).
BCE is a decent cash back card. 3% on groceries is not bad for no annual fee. However, there's a few things to note about Amex cash back cards.
Cash rewards can only be redeemed in $25 increments and only as statement credit. Also, it takes 2 statement cycles for cash back to show up in your rewards balance. That means you can't use rewards earned from current statement purchases to pay down the same statement's balance. You must either carry a balance to the next statement, or make new purchases in order to redeem rewards.
I really don't like these restrictions, and as soon as I get a chance to bump my rewards balance up to $50, I'm going to redeem it all and close the card.
As for HP vs. SP with Amex... they've become really lax lately about HPs. I have 5 Amex cards and only got one HP, the first one for the BCE. Every subsequent card was a SP approval. Not saying that's guaranteed, but many data points seem to suggest they are not doing HPs for existing cardmembers.
You can bundle multiple applications under one HP. However, according to the rules we know of, you can apply for only one revolving credit card. They will only approve one credit card in a 5 day period and 2 credit cards in a 90 day period. That said, we have seen evidence recently that they'll approve two credit cards in one day, but we don't know yet if that is evidence they have relaxed those rules across the board.
Those rules do not apply to charge cards (green, PRG, Plat, etc.). You can bundle those with a credit card under one HP and get as many as you like.
My second app with Amex was for the Everyday Preferred, Premier Rewards Gold, and Green cards, all on the same day (one credit and two charge). All were approved and I never got a HP.
If you're looking for a no annual fee Amex revolver that complements the PRG you just got, you may want to look into the EveryDay card. It earns MR points which can be pooled with the points you get from the PRG. The EveryDay card earns 2 points for groceries and 1 point for everything else, which may seem like no better than what you get with the PRG, but if you make more than 20 purchases in a month, those points get a 20% boost (i.e. 2.4X on groceries and 1.2X on other).
