New to Credit and want Amex

Anonymous · ‎07-27-2018

Hello all,

I'm brand new to credit cards and have only had mine for about a month. It's a Discover student card with a $500 limit. So far I've paid it off in full before the statement date. I heard this strategy increases your score the quickest. That said, I'm looking to increase my score quickly to get approved for an American Express. I'm looking at applying for the Green card, Cash Magnet, or the Gold card.

So my questions are as follows: How long do new credit card users like myself have to wait before they should apply for their first Amex card? What's the best card in the Amex portfolio to apply for first? And what is the ideal score I should have before applying?

By the way, my TU is 700, EX is 695 and EQ is 685. These are the scores I got with credit karma. The Experian score came from their website.

So any thoughts on a good strategy?

Thanks everyone!

Remedios · ‎07-27-2018

If you've only had a card for a month, you would not have fico scores yet.

Do you have student loans or any other installment loans?

Anonymous · ‎07-27-2018

Yes I do. The student loans I've had for a year. So my total age of all my credit is 1y 1m.

Anonymous · ‎07-27-2018

@Anonymous wrote:
Hello all,

I'm brand new to credit cards and have only had mine for about a month. It's a Discover student card with a $500 limit. So far I've paid it off in full before the statement date. I heard this strategy increases your score the quickest. That said, I'm looking to increase my score quickly to get approved for an American Express. I'm looking at applying for the Green card, Cash Magnet, or the Gold card.

So my questions are as follows: How long do new credit card users like myself have to wait before they should apply for their first Amex card? What's the best card in the Amex portfolio to apply for first? And what is the ideal score I should have before applying?

By the way, my TU is 700, EX is 695 and EQ is 685. These are the scores I got with credit karma. The Experian score came from their website.

So any thoughts on a good strategy?

Thanks everyone!

Its not necessarily true that paying off your card before statement date will increase your score faster. Since you only have one card, you'd be better off allowing the balance to be reported to the credit bureaus on the statement close date, then paying off the card on or before the payment due date to avoid paying interest.

The reason is you want the bureaus to have a record of your card use. If you pay your card off before statement cut, Discover knows you're using the card, but to any other lender looking at your credit report it would appear as if you're not using it. The only exception to the above is if you're using over 30 percent of your credit limit. Then you'd want to pay it down to below 30 percent before statement close, then pay the balance on due date.

For an Amex card, simply check the pre-qualification page https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit-cards/check-for-offers/ If you're pre-qualified you'd have an excellent chance of an actual approval for a card.

Major lenders don't use the Vantage Score 3.0 scores generated by websites like Credit Karma so you should ignore the Equifax and TransUnion scores. Your Experian score is solid and Amex only pulls Experian reports/scores. The only disadvantage is the relative newness of your credit history.

Anonymous · ‎07-27-2018

Thanks alot for the info. But I'm still confused. I get that Discover would see that I'm using the card obviously but the credit bureaus would not if I have a zero balance?

I've used the Amex pre qualify link a dozen times and still nothing comes up. But after all, I'm brand new to this. I don't expect to see any new offers any time soon with Amex. I just wanted a time frame as to how long I should wait and what score I should have before applying for them.

Anonymous · ‎07-27-2018

@Anonymous wrote:
Hello all,

I'm brand new to credit cards and have only had mine for about a month. It's a Discover student card with a $500 limit. So far I've paid it off in full before the statement date. I heard this strategy increases your score the quickest. That said, I'm looking to increase my score quickly to get approved for an American Express. I'm looking at applying for the Green card, Cash Magnet, or the Gold card.

So my questions are as follows: How long do new credit card users like myself have to wait before they should apply for their first Amex card? What's the best card in the Amex portfolio to apply for first? And what is the ideal score I should have before applying?

By the way, my TU is 700, EX is 695 and EQ is 685. These are the scores I got with credit karma. The Experian score came from their website.

So any thoughts on a good strategy?

Thanks everyone!

I had two years of credit history before I applied for my first AMEX. Discover It was my second card, got it one year before applying. They rewarded me with a very generous SL so my advice to you is wait till you've had discover for a year. Request a CLI in 6 months with discover and keep paying consistently.

Also a note about pre-qualifying. If you are under 21 you cannot pre-qualify for any cards because of the CARD Act. This may or not apply to you but I thought I'd mention it since you have a discover it student card.

Note: that does not mean you cannot get an AMEX just because you can't do prequalifies. I got my amex at 20.

Best of luck!

Anonymous · ‎07-27-2018

Thanks! I am 21 so I've started this a bit late, but I want to make sure to get my credit right. So many students have terrible spending and credit habits. I think I'll just keep my one Discover card for a year like you've said. But why ask for a CLI? For overall utilization? Or will more credit boost my score?

Anonymous · ‎07-27-2018

@Anonymous wrote:
Thanks alot for the info. But I'm still confused. I get that Discover would see that I'm using the card obviously but the credit bureaus would not if I have a zero balance?

I've used the Amex pre qualify link a dozen times and still nothing comes up. But after all, I'm brand new to this. I don't expect to see any new offers any time soon with Amex. I just wanted a time frame as to how long I should wait and what score I should have before applying for them.

In terms of credit card usage the bureaus record two items; Balance, and Highest Balance. The Highest Balance is the largest amount you've ever used on the card and that normally doesn't change frequently unless you're charging increasingly larger amounts each month. The other field is Balance which is the net of any balances brought forward, new spending for the month, less any payments for a particular month. So if you're paying in full before your statement cuts each month, a zero Balance will be reported to the credit bureaus. And since other lenders don't have access to Discover's information all they will see on your credit report is a string of zeroes for balances and assume you're not using the card.

Regarding the Amex app; there may be several reasons why you aren't pre-approved. You could be precluded by age or by the age of your credit history. But you can still make a cold application if you want. Your Experian FICO score is good enough but credit decisions are based on more than just FICO scores.

Anonymous · ‎07-27-2018

@Anonymous wrote:
Thanks! I am 21 so I've started this a bit late, but I want to make sure to get my credit right. So many students have terrible spending and credit habits. I think I'll just keep my one Discover card for a year like you've said. But why ask for a CLI? For overall utilization? Or will more credit boost my score?

You've actually started early, alot of students may have a card but not understand FICO or credit at all.

Basically a CLI will help with utilization. This does not mean spend spend spend, but rather it shows that when trusted with more available credit that you handle it responsibly. When you apply for any new future cards and they pull your credit, they will see your available line on all your accounts. Some cards have a minimum as to how much credit they give you. For example the Chase Sapphire Preferred card has a minimum starting line of $5,000. If you are applying for cards like this in the future, if you don't have experience with higher credit lines then it's unlikely they approve you for a card like that and the reasoning could very well be "not enough experience with large credit line." When you have an account with someone and they see you use it responsibly by never missing a payment, they're very likely going to honor a CLI compared to a bank you may have never used before. If you ever have a balance, the increased credit line will keep that utilization percentage much lower which means your credit score will be higher.

I like to think of your credit line as representative of how much your creditor trusts you. If you have a CL of $500, it's less compared to $1,000, $5,000, etc.

With that reasoning, if you apply for an AMEX and they see you have $1,000 from discover compared to $500, they'd be more likely to be generous when viewing your appliation. Whether than means acceptance or not will depend on your other "softs" like income as well.

jonnyc · ‎07-27-2018

I was able to get 2 amex cards when I was 18. I had excatly 6 months of history because I remember applying as soon as scores were generated. I was in the mid 700s and was approved for a PRG (NPSL) and an everyday with a $1,000 sl. For reference I also had a 2,000 and 1,000 limit with capone at the time of approval and was AU on a barclay card with 1,500. These were all new accounts at the time.