Credit AMA. Get your questions answered live my an Amex employee - Pooka89 [Ask Me Anything Session]

[Anonymous]

Q: 

Pooka, we are glad you are here. Welcome and thank you for your time.

One thing I hope you will answer us trends in Amex veing concerned about accounts and/ or conducting AA, and trends you may see. We all want to stay on Amex's good side, and certainly there are obvious triggers (i.e., applying for 15 cards and charging them all up), but I'm speaking of more subtle things.

What are the things you see and how can we best avoid them?

Thanks again, my friend!

A: Thanks for your question. Unfortunately, this is a little more difficult to answer just because of how broad the question is and the number of scenarios that can lead to adverse action. I honestly don't see many adverse actions on accounts in my day-to-day work as I work with our premium card members (Platinum and Centurion) primarily. As long as you don't try breaking obvious rules that we lay out, you should generally be fine. Generally, as long as you maintain your account in accordance with your cardmember agreement, you should be okay. Feel free to post a more specific scenario if you're curious about one and I can try to answer on that with some more detail.

[Anonymous]

Q: I know there is  news of Amex coming out with a product to compete with the Chase CSR.  Is there any more details you can share on this or is it strictly confidential?

A: Development of new products and benefits are usually kept confidential even from representatives until about 2-14 days prior to rollout. I have no information about a possible new product or enhancement at this time.

[Anonymous]

Is there any discussion as to the evolution of American Express charge cards allowing folks to revolve a balance?

Also, why has there been a steady decline in permanent APR reductions, and a steady increase in promotional 6-12 month 0% or 6.99% offers?

Are there any product rumors you are able to talk about?

[Anonymous]

Q: When will I ever be able to get my CLI on my BCE? I've had it for 9 months and no dice every time I request one! I have the $1000 SL and scores have risen slightly what gives

A: I'm unable to discuss account specifics on the forum and cannot give you proper guidance without seeing your account. I would suggest asking to speak with a credit analyst after receiving your "declined reasons" letter and they can go into more detail. If your account is 9 months old, and you have been unsuccessful in getting a CLI so far, I would suggest waiting until your account is a full year old before trying again. We are a relationship bank so we do like to see how much you're using your currently established LOC.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Q: I know there is  news of Amex coming out with a product to compete with the Chase CSR.  Is there any more details you can share on this or is it strictly confidential?

A: Development of new products and benefits are usually kept confidential even from representatives until about 2-14 days prior to rollout. I have no information about a possible new product or enhancement at this time.

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@Thought so.. Hopefully you can alert your friends here @Anonymous during that 2-14 days prior if you know what I mean...

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Q: When will I ever be able to get my CLI on my BCE? I've had it for 9 months and no dice every time I request one! I have the $1000 SL and scores have risen slightly what gives

A: I'm unable to discuss account specifics on the forum and cannot give you proper guidance without seeing your account. I would suggest asking to speak with a credit analyst after receiving your "declined reasons" letter and they can go into more detail. If your account is 9 months old, and you have been unsuccessful in getting a CLI so far, I would suggest waiting until your account is a full year old before trying again. We are a relationship bank so we do like to see how much you're using your currently established LOC.

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This is interesting.  So does Amex just go by credit scores or assets when approving CLIs?  I asked becase there have been people whom have received CLIs without using their card frequently.

Is there an ultimate factor into deciding who gets approved for a CLI and who doesn't?

[Anonymous]

Q: Is there any discussion as to the evolution of American Express charge cards allowing folks to revolve a balance?

Also, why has there been a steady decline in permanent APR reductions, and a steady increase in promotional 6-12 month 0% or 6.99% offers?

Are there any product rumors you are able to talk about?

A: Hello! There is no discussion at this time beyond the existing Pay Over Time features offered to some Charge products. Our business model is a little different from other banks in that we do not focus on earning income from finance charges, but we instead focus on the revenue earned from the volume of charges on an account. I would imagine that there is unlikely any change coming that would allow a more traditional revolving feature on our Charge products.

As for why we have started moving toward promotional APRs, that's something that isn't communicated to customer service so I'm not able to speculate as to why. We have seen it too - but have no explanation. Customer service pretty much just activates whatever lower APR offer has been loaded onto the account by Account Services.

I'm not able to discuss any new products or enhancements at this time.

[Anonymous]

Q: This is interesting.  So does Amex just go by credit scores or assets when approving CLIs?  I asked becase there have been people whom have received CLIs without using their card frequently.

Is there an ultimate factor into deciding who gets approved for a CLI and who doesn't?

A: We use all of that information when coming to a conclusion. Primarily though, we focus on your usage of American Express products. If you are using your card heavily, and you are paying it off satisfactorily, we will typically go ahead an increase your LOC to better meet your needs. We can also see how heavily you use American Express in relation to credit cards on other networks. If we see that our share of your wallet is low, we know that you have another card that you are using more frequently and while we will try to earn that share with things like "Amex Offers", we will not increase our risk by increasing a LOC to a point where we doubt you'll ever use it - particularly if you have a high amount of available credit on your other cards.

[Anonymous]

Pooka89,

Do "premium card holders" like platinum and centurion memebers get better customer service or treatment compared to other Amex account holders? Since many on the forum has mentioned the underwriting and requirements for all charge cards are the same. Do you know since working for Amex if Amex as a company truly values platinum card members on another level? Is it considered a top of a like Amex card or is it more so all cards are equal just whatever fits you best type of thing. Is there an actual card ranking? Also, do you see new benefits being added to the plat card to compete with the CSR in the future or Amex rolling out an entirely diff product instead? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Can a customer service representative not see I was declined for a limit increase? When I asked when I could try again She said I was eligible right now.