Amex Approvals! (and some of my story)

[SanjeevR]

Hi all,

I'm fairly new to the forums. I thought I would share some of my success.

To make a long story short, I finally achieved primeville back in Sep 2011. I was approved for Amex Premier Rewards and Green cards. Since then, I've been working on my scores and have finally gotten all 3 FICO scores to be in the 750 - 788 range and Util at 6%. (To keep it in perspective, my EX FICO was around a 630 and Util around 85% when approved for Amex PR/Green.)

Mar 2011 - Chase United Mileage Explorer (10K Visa Sig limit, 60k miles bonus)

Mar 2011 - Chase Sapphire Preferred (5K Visa Sig limit, 60k UR points bonus)

Mar 2011 - Discover Escape (4K limit, 25k miles bonus)

Today - Amex Hilton Surpass (20K limit, 60k points bonus)

Today - Amex BCP (20K limit)

(Note: I did have an Amex Green back in '98. So, I now have four Amex cards backdating to '98.)

Yes, I am absolutely shocked and amazed at my two Amex approvals today!!! Cannot believe it. All the hard work has truly paid off. I had a lot of disputes with the CRB, but my reports are finally completely clean! (I had BK in 2002 and various lates/collections in 2005-2006.)

My question - I know that high some Visa Signature limits will not report. Fortunately, Chase does report its Visa Sig limits. What about Amex? Do 20K limits report?

Thank you ALL for your advice on these forums. People like MarineVietVet, haulingthescoreup, LS2982, Credit Scholar, CS800, TannerK have been very, very informative!

[aussiesareforever]

Congrats on your story and for encouraging someone like me with a fairly recent BK. It is nice to know what is possible in the future!

[Brian_Trying_700]

Nice Job and congrats. That is a lot of encouragement for myself and many other people here.

[TNTransplant]

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@SanjeevR wrote:

Hi all,

I'm fairly new to the forums. I thought I would share some of my success.

(Note: I did have an Amex Green back in '98. So, I now have four Amex cards backdating to '98.)

Yes, I am absolutely shocked and amazed at my two Amex approvals today!!! Cannot believe it. All the hard work has truly paid off. I had a lot of disputes with the CRB, but my reports are finally completely clean! (I had BK in 2002 and various lates/collections in 2005-2006.)

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This.  One can't underestimate the power of AMEX backdating four cards back to 1998...  Not at all minimizing your hard work at cleaning up your credit and recovering after bankruptcy, but this one thing has had a huge impact.

Congrats on your scores/cards and overall credit improvement.   

[SanjeevR]

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@TNTransplant wrote:

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@SanjeevR wrote:

Hi all,

I'm fairly new to the forums. I thought I would share some of my success.

(Note: I did have an Amex Green back in '98. So, I now have four Amex cards backdating to '98.)

Yes, I am absolutely shocked and amazed at my two Amex approvals today!!! Cannot believe it. All the hard work has truly paid off. I had a lot of disputes with the CRB, but my reports are finally completely clean! (I had BK in 2002 and various lates/collections in 2005-2006.)

---

This.  One can't underestimate the power of AMEX backdating four cards back to 1998...  Not at all minimizing your hard work at cleaning up your credit and recovering after bankruptcy, but this one thing has had a huge impact.

Congrats on your scores/cards and overall credit improvement.   

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Thanks TNT!

I agree that the backdating is crucial. Keep in mind that my FICO's are currently only being helped by the two backdated Gold/Green cards. I only got approved for the other two today. But, in all honesty, this is part of the reason I applied for these cards. My AAOA has been hit by the 3 recent Chase/Discover approvals. The additional 28 years from the new cards certainly will not hurt!

To be clear, though, I really wanted the Hilton Surpass card! I stay with Hilton all the time and the rewards program for this card is great. 9 points for any Hilton spend, 6 points for supermarket/gas/drug store purchases, 3 points for everything else.

For those who are looking for a credit tip, I will share that my biggest FICO gains came from reducing my overall UTIL %. I gained probably between 80-100 points when I went from 85% to 6%. I accomplished this by not only paying off my cards, but also by seeking as many soft pull CLI's as I could. Not only did my overall UTIL drop, but the UTIL on the individual cards made a huge impact. Prior to reading these forums, I had no idea that maxing out a $750 or $1000 limit card would ruin my scores! This overall strategy of improving UTIL% worked wonders!

[Brian_Trying_700]

Amen. Im here to listen and learn. Its such a great forum.

[pizzadude]

The credit limits for your AMEX cards will show on your reports, I believe that after individual CLs get above 50 or 60K they are no longer counted in FICO utilization.

[SanjeevR]

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@pizzadude wrote:

The credit limits for your AMEX cards will show on your reports, I believe that after individual CLs get above 50 or 60K they are no longer counted in FICO utilization.

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Thanks, pizzadude. That's helpful and good news!

[Anonymous]

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@pizzadude wrote:

The credit limits for your AMEX cards will show on your reports, I believe that after individual CLs get above 50 or 60K they are no longer counted in FICO utilization.

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Really? So does that mean going from a $40k CL to $70k CL will hurt your score (all other things being equal)?

[aussiesareforever]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@pizzadude wrote:

The credit limits for your AMEX cards will show on your reports, I believe that after individual CLs get above 50 or 60K they are no longer counted in FICO utilization.

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Really? So does that mean going from a $40k CL to $70k CL will hurt your score (all other things being equal)?

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I believe it means it wouldn't increase your score. The additional credit limit will NOT count towards your utilization so your score wouldn't go up like it might have otherwise. It might hurt your score from an AAoA perspective but not in the OP's case since his new accounts were back dated. Hope that makes sense.