So about 5 years ago I defaulted with an Amex charge card and the balance was sent off to collections. I think NCO financial called and tried to get me to settle the balance -- we set up a payment plan and I paid the balance down over the course of a year or so. I'm a firm believer in paying off my debts! Anyway, after my last payment was made I got an application for the Amex Oasis Optims Card. I figured it would be a good way to get a positive history going with Amex again, so I applied and got a $500 limit. I turned things around since then and had started using my credit cards responsibly. I started to pay everything off in full each month and never utilized more then 10-20% at a time -- and I did that with the Oasis card for about two solid years. So the other night I'm talking on the Amex online support chat about applying for a new card. He/she encouraged me to apply. I only had one inquiry for a LendingClub personal loan (to consolidate my other credit cards) so I thought I'd give it a shot. I applied for the Amex EveryDay card and was approved instantly with a $5,000 limit. Small potatoes for some of you, but a big win for me! I also saw that my Fico 8 score was a 751, a huge increase since I last checked it a couple years ago when it was less than 630. Working hard definitely pays off in the long run.
