Anecdotally, there have been plenty of people on here who reported being able to get an Amex charge card (Green, Gold, etc) with no problem but were told no when they tried for a revolver, so it does seem the charge cards have a lower bar for approval.
That being said, if you look hard enough you will also find the opposite situation; I think I've read twice of somebody reporting not being able to get a charge card but being approved for a revolver (the exact opposite of what most people experience) but it's not common.
In other words, based on evidence here the charge cards are easier, but it's always YMMV. 
The fast way to be made into a liar on here is to utter the words "always", "never", or "absolutely". 
(with the notable exception of 'always YMMV' - that's generally pretty safe... LOL)
@UncleB wrote:Anecdotally, there have been plenty of people on here who reported being able to get an Amex charge card (Green, Gold, etc) with no problem but were told no when they tried for a revolver, so it does seem the charge cards have a lower bar for approval.
That being said, if you look hard enough you will also find the opposite situation; I think I've read twice of somebody reporting not being able to get a charge card but being approved for a revolver (the exact opposite of what most people experience) but it's not common.
In other words, based on evidence here the charge cards are easier, but it's always YMMV.
The fast way to be made into a liar on here is to utter the words "always", "never", or "absolutely".
(with the notable exception of 'always YMMV' - that's generally pretty safe... LOL)
+1
In my experience, the charge cards are probably slightly easier to get. The PRG/Gold/Green were the first to show up on the AMEX prequal site for me, and it was only after a while that the ED and BCE started to show up too.
I don't think that income is too much of an issue. It might have been in the past with AMEX, but with the loss of Costco etc., it seems like they are slightly lowering the underwriting criteria to increase the number of cardholders.
@Anonymous wrote:Interesting that a minimum wage college student felt that he needed a Gold card? I barely had any amount of money in college lol!
I had a Green card while in college years ago... a few times it was a God-send.
@Anonymous wrote:I'll also add that there is no underwriting difference between the various charge cards. The Platinum is no harder to get than the green card for example.
^^^^^ This. As previously noted, anecdotally the charge cards are easier to get. I've read on other forums (over a long period of time) where AMEX CSR's have commented (take this with a grain of salt ) that there are different underwriting criteria for the charge cards vs the revolving credit cards, and that charge cards are easier to get. But there's no difference in underwriting criteria for the charge card group of cards.
Always YMMV. 