The $1k SLs indicate your Amex cards were marginal approvals, so the lack of CLI since probably just means they're still only marginally comfortable with your profile. Different issuers like Amex and, e.g., Disco, are going to have different policies and UW standards for CLI, so what one does doesn't really indicate what the other should or will do. From what you've shared, I imagine the settled accounts, lates, and low EX score are what's keeping them clamped down at the moment. As your baddies age and fall off and your EX improves, you'll probably hit a point where they look on you more favorably, since afaik Amex doesn't bucket cards.
I wouldn't call Discover conservative so much as just capricious. I think you can usually get in w/ them on a weaker profile than most of the other major lenders might require for an uns rewards card, but whatever logic they apply to CLI requests is kind of inscrutable, since they seem to almost approve or deny at random. For a borrower with a strong credit profile, I'd expect Amex to be the issuer that was more generous w/ CLI, between the two of them, since you can potentially jam up your limit w/ 3x CLI to about $25-$35k and then keep going w/ $5k increases until you hit whatever max they're comfortable giving you, while Discover you more just have ask for CLI every so often and get whatever growth they do or don't give you. But for a profile that is partway through rebuilding or has had some significant past issues, I would expect Discover to be more generous, both for approval odds and CLI's, since they're more comfortable in those score ranges.
If you have high util that would be a good thing to address, both for Amex, since I think they don't like to see high balances carried on either their own or other cards, and for your scores in general. Iirc, util isn't weighed as heavily on dirty scorecards as it is on clean, but it's still a significant part of your score.
Isolated 30d lates at least don't hurt as bad as strings or more significant delinquencies, and they lose a lot of their sting after they've aged two years. They also, iirc, don't segment you to a dirty card by themselves, so, once your chargeoffs and other significant bads are all aged off, you probably will see some good score gain, as long as everything else in your profile stays good. If you like the rewards structures on your current Amex cards, just keep them open and in use until your profile is showing them a better face. As long as you didn't have any chargeoffs with Amex, I expect that you'd see growth then.
@Anonymous wrote:I do not understand the asking for clis on this forum so frequently. I can not remember the last time I asked for a cli. The CCs will do it ever so often anyway and the best part is that helps your credit the most as it is unrequested and un utilized credit.
The scoring effects of an auto-CLI and a consumer-initiated SP CLI would be the same.
