Easiest AMEX approval odds?

[Anonymous]

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. 

[Anonymous]

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.

[Msjonesclt]

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. 

[Anonymous]

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

[Anonymous]

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. 

[Anonymous]

No data points.

News reports indicate a massive tightening of belts.

[MomoMango]

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. 

[Oops_I_Did_It_Again]

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!

[SweetCreditObsession]

Thanks for the caution @MomoMango .

[SweetCreditObsession]

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