Is 7 months history enough for Amex ?

[Anonymous]

I'm sure this question been asked a million times before so I thought I'd make it a million and one . So my friend has 7 months of credit history and wants to get an Amex revolver . One credit card ( $1000 limit ) , 3 inquires ( 2 stop counting towards score after January) , no lates , no collections , under 10% utilization and a 742 experian fico score . She's a college student so her income right now isn't too great (18000 annual) . Do you guys think applying for Amex this early is a bad idea ?

[chalupaman]

I think she should go for it. 

[Dustink]

My opinion would be to wait for the 1 year mark.

[Anonymous]

I don't think she'll need to wait. I'd go for it.

[newhis]

I only had 2 cards with $1,000 limit for 7 months before Amex site showed me a few offers. I took the PRG for 50K after spending 1K in 3 months.

Anything on Amex prequal website?

I say go for it. I think the SL will be over $1,000.

[chalupaman]

One thing I really like about Amex is that from my experience, they aren't as strict as Chase on how they want to see a year of history. I got in with Amex two months before getting in with Chase with 9 months of credit history and I've even known someone who got in with a little over 6 months of history. They also can give generous starting limits that can really help with getting higher limit cards in the future so that's another reason she should probably apply for an Amex as soon as possible even if she's just going for a charge card. You establish your MSD as well.

[elim]

IMHO app now

[Anonymous]

Thanks everyone for the valuable opinions . It's good to know she has a chance . She wants a revolver but if the charge is safer il try convincing her . Is there a difference between applying now and applying in January as far as the backdating thing goes ? I was gonna tell to apply in January since 2 of her inquires would stop counting towards the fico score .

[chalupaman]

---

@Anonymous wrote:
Thanks everyone for the valuable opinions . It's good to know she has a chance . She wants a revolver but if the charge is safer il try convincing her . Is there a difference between applying now and applying in January as far as the backdating thing goes ? I was gonna tell to apply in January since 2 of her inquires would stop counting towards the fico score .

---

If you do it in January you'll get a MSD of '15 rather than '14. Do it now and she might still have a chance at getting a '14 MSD. Amex IMO isn't too inquiry sensitive at all.

It would be interesting though to see what would happen if she were to apply December 31st for a charge card and then apply January 1st for a revolver. I wonder if anyone here has done it before and successfully ended up the MSD they wanted.