Before I start, if you want to find these offers -- I logged in from my normal browser (not an account holder until today, so not logged in) and checked my prequalified offers, which is where I found the 50k PRG bonus and a 15k* ED bonus. I clicked to see "All Cards" in the top menu, which showed me a much higher bonus for the Platinum (75k instead of 60k), ED (25 instead of 15), PRG (50 instead of 25), and Green card (25k MR points instead of 0). Apped the PRG through the qualified offers page, but the ED and Green Card through this other page. I tried to replicate it from any other view of all Amex cards, but couldn't find the same great offers. Now, onto the details...
Hello everyone!
I haven't posted much, but I have been lurking for months and just had a really good set of applications. I noticed I had 3 great targeted offers from Amex (details on how I got them at the top) -- 50k MR points with $1k spend on PRG, 25k MR points with $2k spend on the Everyday card, and 25k MR points on the Green card with $1k spend. I read that you can keep applying to Amex cards as long as you're getting instant approvals and they will all loop into one hard pull, so I bit the bullet and did it.
Before today, here was my credit profile:
- Discover IT Miles card, opened in April (my first credit card). At the last report it was 2K limit with $1600 utilization (very high, I know - it reported a day before my payment posted; I normally report $1-$50). Last week this bumped to a 3k limit (won't report until the end of the November, though)
- Suntrust Bank 36mo unsecured 20k loan opened in July (applied for autoloan but given unsecured)
- Authorized user on a Citi AAdvantage opened in 2003 with 1% utilization, and AU on a GAP card opened in 2014 with no current balance
- No late payments, collections, or any other negative remarks on my accounts or the AU accounts
FICO 8 Scores today (last month they were mid-700s, but went down due to high Discover IT util):
Ex - 687
Eq - 692
TU - 706
I started with the PRG since I wanted this card the most, and it was an instant approval, so continued with the Everyday, which gave me an instant approval and 1k limit (which is fine with me since it's no fee -- I wanted the 25k point bonus), followed by the Green Card instant approval (first year free, cancel before I get charged for the next year mostly for the 25k bonus).
I'm very aware that this will have a significant impact on average age of account, but I was willing to accept that for the 100k MR point bonus. I'm also probably going to become an authorized user on a couple more 10+ yr old cards to compensate for this. I'm just surprised that I was able to get 3 cards instantly approved when I only have 1 card as primary account holder opened in April, plus a loan from July. Now, time to make the 4k spend and lay low in the garden making payments and requesting CLIs on the Discover and Everyday. I'm not planning to open any more cards anytime soon, just let some hard pulls drop off and AAoA go up. I just couldn't help applying for all three of them with such high signup bonuses!
