I have been waiting to pull the trigger to apply for an American Express card for the past six months. I have been going on their website every month (as my credit score got higher and higher) to see about pre-qualified offers. It started by not recommending me any options in August with a 620 average. Around October, it started recommending most of their annual fee cards (649 average). At the time, I did not think that I wanted to spend money on an annual basis to have a credit card in my wallet; but recently I messed with their simulation about how much I would spend on groceries (6% cash back) and gas (3% cash back) and compared it to the regular Blue Cash and figured that I would pay for the annual fee and more if I went for the BCP.
Back to the point where I was checking for offers, I went on AMEX's website this past week and saw that I was pre-qualified for their Gold Card. I knew that I didn't want the Gold Card at this point (even when the rose gold option was there), but the fact that I was not pre-qualified before gave me confidence to pull the trigger for the BCP card. Out of all the cards I have been approved for (Discover student, Scott Credit Union) I feel that AMEX wanted minimal information which made me feel even more confident when hitting the Submit button on their application page.
Low and behold, within 15 seconds they forwarded me over to the approval screen which let me know about my SL of $1,000. It is a pretty low SL in my opinion (especially when my SCU card is at $3,000 and Discover is at $1,500), but I am happy that I got my foot in the door with AMEX. Below I will let you know of my factors (including my annual income and credit scores) in case you are interested in applying. I am excited about the $200 statement credit after $1,000 in purchases and the amazing cash back in categories I use quite often. Cheers!
Factors:
Income - $30,000
AAoA - 8 months
Averaged Credit Score - 649
Credit Util. - 68% (I pay out of pocket for community college)
