Hi Friends!
I've been helping my mom to rebuild credit this past year and for kicks I tried her info in the AMEX prequal. Surprisingly, it came back with 2 offers! The weird thing is that there are no welcome bonuses attached to the offers (see image). Is this normal? If she went ahead and apped through the prequal link, does this mean she wouldn't even get the current public bonus? I tried talking to a rep through chat and he didn't even understand what I was asking.... Thanks in advanced!
We aren't completely sure of her scores since we are waiting to buy them from myfico next month before apping for anything new, but estimating low-mid 600s. She has 5 collections across the board. She was approved last year for a Cap1 secured card. Then approved beginning of January for a Cap1 Platinum no AF card. It was upgraded this past weekend to a no AF Quicksilver upon request (yay!).
@Anonymous wrote:
There's no welcome bonus? C'MON AMEX.
The cash should at least be $150 and ED 10k. C'MON AMEX.
I'd ask for my bonus and try to find a big one. credit cards dot com
It's once a lifetime, so...
I thought it was kinda weird. Maybe her credit profile is like borderline so they're like "hmmmm...well I guess you can have one, but no soup for you". lol
I did try cardmatch and only 3 first premier cards come up for her...yuck. However, even when I received prequals for AMEX, they never came up for me on cardmatch either.
@Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised that no one here has asked the obvious question (especially since I only even learned about this from these same posters), has your mum ever had an AMEX card before? Perhaps she has already gotten the bonus at another time, and that is why nothing's coming up now. If not, I would personally wait to see if a better offer comes along.
No, she hasn't. She IS an AU on MY amex (BCP). I didn't think that would keep her from getting a bonus though?
I will tell you what the chat specialist told me earlier before I applied with the same two offers, approved for the BCE and the Everyday is pending due to fraud alert, they chat rep said to NOT apply within the prequalify, go to the regular site and take it as business as usual! Amex prequalify is usually solid so you SHOULD be okay but YMMV! good luck! Just make sure you see the bonus when you hit apply! 
@beautifulblaquepearl wrote:Congrats to you and your Mom on the 2 offers! Are the collections paid? When will they be removed from her credit profile? It may be worth it for her to wait. IMO, I think it's better to get an awesome approval than to barely be approved. Best of luck to you and your Mom!
Thank you! The collections are from 2014 and 2015 unpaid. 3 are medical and 2 are tmobile. She will be retiring next summer and we need to start looking at permanent living arrangements as she currently rents an apartment. I was hoping we could get her the BCE so she'd have 2 solid cashback cards and then she can pursue the path of a mortgage on a condo later this year.
@Cookie2120987 wrote:
I will tell you what the chat specialist told me earlier before I applied with the same two offers, approved for the BCE and the Everyday is pending due to fraud alert, they chat rep said to NOT apply within the prequalify, go to the regular site and take it as business as usual! Amex prequalify is usually solid so you SHOULD be okay but YMMV! good luck! Just make sure you see the bonus when you hit apply!
Congratulations! That's good to hear! So your prequals didn't have a welcome bonus either?