Hi all,
I just got rejected instantly when I applied for an Amex Delta skymiles card. Here are my datapoints.
1. No hardpull. Instant denial.
2. I filed bankruptcy in 2009 and included one $10k Amex card at the time. I never paid anything back.
3. I try once every couple of years for an amex card.
4. Ficos in 720s. No baddies on credit reports
5. Credit cards from most prime banks.
To be honest, they didn't even look at any of these datapoints lol. 
But I am posting them in case people care. I think there is a lot of conflicting info out there about the amex blacklist, and I wanted to post a verified datapoint.
@lgtwriter wrote:Hi all,
I just got rejected instantly when I applied for an Amex Delta skymiles card. Here are my datapoints.
1. No hardpull. Instant denial.
2. I filed bankruptcy in 2009 and included one $10k Amex card at the time. I never paid anything back.
3. I try once every couple of years for an amex card.
4. Ficos in 720s. No baddies on credit reports
5. Credit cards from most prime banks.
6. $175k income
7. 19 to 20 percent utilization across my credit cards. No card has over ten percent utilization.
To be honest, they didn't even look at any of these datapoints lol.
I dont believe you can 100% say they havent looked at your datapoints. Maybe if no sp somewhere but id venture somewhere in their archives they have info on you since you did burn them. Amex has no preset time period to get off a blacklist, only one where if you declared bk and havent included them. Some things can be done to help your cause like actually paying them back though that in itself isnt a gaurentee either. Best thing to do is keep trying ever so often. It could be tomorrow, 6 months or 10 years, hopefully you can break in once more
@lgtwriter wrote:Hi all,
I just got rejected instantly when I applied for an Amex Delta skymiles card. Here are my datapoints.
1. No hardpull. Instant denial.
2. I filed bankruptcy in 2009 and included one $10k Amex card at the time. I never paid anything back.
3. I try once every couple of years for an amex card.
4. Ficos in 720s. No baddies on credit reports
5. Credit cards from most prime banks.
6. $175k income
7. 19 to 20 percent utilization across my credit cards. No card has over ten percent utilization.
To be honest, they didn't even look at any of these datapoints lol.
The Blacklist is legendary and can be long. I was on it for many years. The upside is they didn't do a HP and then deny you.
@VanderSnoot wrote:Oof, sorry, OP. Your post inspired me to google "how to get off Amex blacklist," and Amex can certainly hold a grudge. Can someone add you as an AU? That seems to do the trick.
I'm sure I read somewhere here AMEX will not allow an AU currently on the so-called (but not acknowledged by AMEX) Blacklist.
Hi all,
Thanks for the comments! I really don't need another credit card (I have over 100k of available credit). I just wanted to get more Delta miles since I have to travel more now for work.
Anyway, my membership on the blacklist is twelve years and counting lol. 
I seem to recall reading several different threads here the average blacklist reported is something like 5.5 years which was in fact the case for me as well.
I burned them for just over $10k so I'm not sure what the sticking point they have with your particular account
