Is getting Amex BCE easy?

[austinguy907]

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@Subexistence wrote:

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I am a student. $1,200 does meet my spending limits but it hurts my LexisNexis reason codes which will hurt my car insurance. It does so because LN uses average credit limit as a factor in determining score. More can be found on http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/General-Credit-Topics/Car-Insurance-and-Store-Cards/td-p/4846517
It's also pretty humiliating and embarrasing. One of my friends got AU when he was 16 on a chase card then his dad did a citiDC application for him landing $2000 SL when he was 18. Then I referred him to Discover for him to land $5,000SL unsecured and this was all before a fico score generated. Another one of my friends had $14,500 SL from co-signed m&t visa signature. They are all 18 year old first year students like me. Out of the 3 of them, I care most about credit and even when I had a FICO score I worked really hard on, I still could not come even close to them. A great shame has fallen upon me.

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SUB!!!!

Stop with this nonsense!  It's not a real priority in life.  Being financially fit is more important than competing with the Jones' and Smith's of the world.  

Both instances you're comparing yourself to are APPLES to your ORANGES because you did it on your own w/o mommy and daddy getting it for you!  They had someone with extensive history SIGN for them which means they're responsible for the debt when their kids can't pay the CC bill and default.  You earned your cash and put $2500 of skin in the game with Disco right?  Some people around here are hesistant to even put in $200 let alone 12 times that.  Putting in the $2500 means you're serious and have things in order and will be rewarded when the clock ticks down and they convert the account.  

Worry about yourself and take what you see here as potential and not a competition.  There's plenty of insight here to be gleaned from the tons of data that people have posted over the years.  Like in your other thread I mentioned ENVY and this is showing right now with your mention of your 2 friends.  If you ASPIRE instead of ENVY you'll be in a better place.  The only person you're competing against is yourself and you're already off to a good start.  We can't call be born with a silver spoon in our mouth when it comes to credit.  Giving someone the easy path to credit like your friends doesn't let them learn how to do it on their own quite as well as a stumble here and there.  

[MrsCHX]

Woah. 

I have kids your age and only 1 person knows anything about my credit score, history and limits. And that's my very best friend. We both starting rebuilding around the same time - she was a bit before me - so we celebrate the victories of score jumps, approvals, CLIs, etc.  But it is not a topic of conversation that I have in general with family and friends. 

You'll feel better if you aren't comparing what you have/don't have to others. Even the grading aspect. I would feel bad about a B if I knew I didn't study/work hard enough. I would feel amazing about a B if I knew that I put in all the effort I could into earning that B. And what others have is completely irrelevant. That's really the best way to approach life. 

What you'll learn as you get older is that some people have HUGE incomes and HUGE credit limits, etc but they are AWFUL at managing money. They have no savings, they're in debt up to their eyeballs. And here you are looking at their nice home and nice car and not knowing they're one life event away from financial ruin.

[Subexistence]

You guys win. I won't care about others. Although the LN thing still brings up concern.I think I need much higher average CL for LN to not penalize my insurance. I think LN has a reason code for it. https://consumer-solutions.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2523/~/how-do-i-learn-more-about-sco...

The reason code is 3038.

[austinguy907]

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@Subexistence wrote:

You guys win. I won't care about others. Although the LN thing still brings up concern.I think I need much higher average CL for LN to not penalize my insurance. I think LN has a reason code for it. https://consumer-solutions.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2523/~/how-do-i-learn-more-about-sco...

The reason code is 3038.

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Really?  In my experience with Auto insurance for 20 years now it doesn't make much of a difference what LN reports for an insurance score.  Insurance companies are out to make money and can/will find another bogus reason to charge you what they will.  The best defense against high rates is to shop around each time you come to a renewal.  In the middle of 2016 the company I was with for a 12 month policy jumped the rates from 1800/yr to close to 2500/yr.  This was highly unacceptable for no changes to my driving habits or anything else.  I started shopping around and ended up taking a policy with state farm for ~$800/6 months and of course when they sent the renewal it jumped to $950/6 months.  Shopping around was again something that needed to be done to not pay an increasing amount again.  I had previously gotten some quotes through AAA but the local agents were being "difficult" by adding additional discounts that didn't apply or asking about things like having 2 policies which of course was due to switching from one to another but it was done at the end/start dates but LN of course doesn't update that info real time.  Well, due to the agents being dunces they replied with quotes 5 days after I had started the new policy with SF.  I kept the info in the back of my mind for the time being in case SF rate jacked me at renewal.  

Long story short like anything else you have to spend some time looking around and comparing things apples to apples.  Insurance is kind of like taxes.... It's a given thing you're going to end up spending money on until you die.  I had a similar issue with replacing an HVAC and 5 quotes resulted in prices from $4200 to $12K for the same work and equipment.  If you're lazy about spending money that has to be spent anyway then you're going to end up paying more if you don't do the work.

[Aduke1122]

You will get there Op , you have to give yourself some time to esb your history once you do that then the lender will be much more generous. You are very young and have plenty of time , and the fact that you are building good credit habits at this time in your life is great . I'm 33 and just got my FIRST credit card EVER the beginning of 2016 . I'm still building history . My highest CL is 4k but most of which are in the 1k range . I'm am grateful to have that . You don't worry about what everyone else has bc it's pointless . Those friends of yours were AU on their parents ccs which bought them that much more history when it came time to apply for their own cards . Good luck to you . And try not to make too much of out of The LN thing . They know you are only 18 , most level minded ppl will not expect any 18 year old to have 10-20k CL

[HeavenOhio]

Your age and driving record are going to have a much bigger effect on your car insurance than your credit will. And if that's if your insurance company bothers to check. My homeowners insurance pulls my credit once a year, but I see no indication that my car insurance does.

[Anonymous]

I won't roll my eyes too hard because you're young and allowed to be insecure, but the LN stuff is bs. Being under 25 is the single most factor impacting your insurance rates now. You're being compared to others in your age group, not to the 40 year olds with $15,000 average limits. I don't know what your average limit is, but i'd assume $1,200 is on the high end for your age group. 

[Aduke1122]

Sorry I forgot to answer your main question about whether it is easy to get an Amex cc . It's not like it's Credit one where they would give their cards out to those in the 500 credit scores but anyone who has a decent score and profile that is not really dirty would likely get approved . I got denied when I tried last year but I still had a few issues going on with some baddies , my reports are now clean but I don't want to try again until I get up over 700s

[Anonymous]

Amex is not the easiest card to get but certainly no the hardest.  I would not wory about LN for insurance.  Until you 25 you are high risk. Other factors 1) education 2) car type 3) driving record 4) are you on your parents policy.  5)  if you have a "monitor" for 30 days what it shows about your driving     Insurance is best done by shopping every year.  We pay $700 per car for $1MM  full coverage with only a $500 deductable for our car insurance    Due to our good driving record we have $4MM overly at no extra charge for non owned auto through our biz.   That was a result of hard shopping.  We got 2 quotes at $700/car and several others that ran us as $1500/car  Money/credit is a topic not to be shared. 

[irunfromcredit]

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@Subexistence wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Subexistence wrote:

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I am a student. $1,200 does meet my spending limits but it hurts my LexisNexis reason codes which will hurt my car insurance. It does so because LN uses average credit limit as a factor in determining score. More can be found on http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/General-Credit-Topics/Car-Insurance-and-Store-Cards/td-p/4846517
It's also pretty humiliating and embarrasing. One of my friends got AU when he was 16 on a chase card then his dad did a citiDC application for him landing $2000 SL when he was 18. Then I referred him to Discover for him to land $5,000SL unsecured and this was all before a fico score generated. Another one of my friends had $14,500 SL from co-signed m&t visa signature. They are all 18 year old first year students like me. Out of the 3 of them, I care most about credit and even when I had a FICO score I worked really hard on, I still could not come even close to them. A great shame has fallen upon me.

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That is literally one of the worst ways to look at credit and it would do yourself some good to get out of that mindset. Also, why does it matter what others have as limits? Why not worry about building your own credit and not comparing apples to oranges?

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The reason it matters is because people are meant to feel bad when others do better. I'm sure if you got a B on an assignment when everyone else got As on the same assignment, you would feel bad.

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People are not meant to feel bad when others do better.  People are meant to celebrate successes.  And "doing better" is all subjective, especially when you are talking credit. Anyhow, you have gotten some sound advice here and I will leave it that......