Should I apply for AMEX Premier Rewards Gold through their offers?

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I keep getting Amex PRG offers from the company every 2-3 months beside the offer to upgrade my current Amex card to BCP from BCE. I have been ignoring them. However, I am curious about Amex PRG.

My current situation:

My last official FICO score was around Score(Dec 16, 2017) EQ >720?, EXP ?, TU >730?  on December 2017. I received the official score from Veterans United Home Loans the month before (Nov 2017). Since then, I haven't check the official score but using the estimate from free FICO score through Citibank (745) and Barclay (724). Those scores also haven't been updated yet since I just recently (a week ago) paid off around ~$9000 off my credit card balance (including Amex $3550). So I am not ready to get the new fico scores from myfico.com. My utilization is around 29%. I also received a $3000 CLI from Citibank and $4000 from Amex ($19800 limit) so I am hoping to see my  utilization going down further. I am planning to lower it down to 22% by next month. 

My questions:

-If I apply for Amex PRG, how much credit point would I get hit on my current FICO score? 

-It says that I have to pay back every month with no interest. What if there is a balance, how much will it affect my credit score? I read that this card doesn't affect the FICO overall credit utilization due to no preset limit. 

-I only travel internationally once a year if not once in two years. I also travel one or twice using local flights per year. Total miles probably around 10k. Is that wise to apply for Amex PRG since I am not a frequent flyer?

-I am planning to buy a house between 1.5 to 2 months (if my Fico scores go up in time) and I like to have a card that I could use without worrying about utilization and getting a rewards for spending it during the move. Will those purchase (not airfare) count towards reward points and how much?

Thank you all in advance by helping me to make my decision. I love this site and I am hoping will spend more time on it this year. 

[Anonymous]

You should not apply for any CC until after you close on your house 

[Anonymous]

Thank you. I was thinking about the same thing. I guess I will hold on to maintain or increase my credit score for the house loan. Any slight decrease of score might cost me 30 years of extra expenses because of the APR. If I upgrade my BCE to BCP would that also out a hit on my credit score? Thanks.

[simplynoir]

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@Anonymouswrote:
If I upgrade my BCE to BCP would that also out a hit on my credit score? Thanks.

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No, because it's a product change you still get to keep the history of the account it's just going to have a different/better reward structure to go along with the AF.

[Anonymous]

Not sure why you don't know your Experian score as an AMEX card member... It shows you version #8 (the score they use) literally right on their website after you're logged in. 

To answer your questions:

-You shouldn't apply for any cards before you close on your house.

-Your "point hit" will be determined based on how long your credit history is, as AMEX will do a soft pull, but you'll have an account with 0.0 factoring into the average age. The longer your credit history, the more it'll have an effect on your AAoA and eventually your scores. If you have a large number of accounts with a long history, it will take some of the blow out of the credit score hit.

- If you don't pay in full on your PRG, they'll hit you with a late fee the first time, and then the second time, they'll close your account. 

- PRG is good for modest flyers. Frequent fliers go for the Platinum. 

[Anonymous]

Thank you simplynoir. That is good to hear because I do really like the 5% cashback. Even with $95 fees, I will able to cover it back after spending $2000 a year. I will try to apply for it tomorrow. 

[Anonymous]

Hi mountaindewvoltage, My Experian account was locked until today. I signed up for the trial version for Experian after so many trials to get back my old account.  The weird thing was it could find my old account and reset my password but I still couldn't get in.  I spent an hour but decided to create a new account. Under the new account, it is asking for e-mail as the login but the account id remains the same. That's how I could get my new Fico 8 scores. I am still not sure why that is happening. My Fico scores drops 5 point on Experian from experian.com and on amex site it is still using a score from a month ago. Currently I am having a situation where my Citibank account is not listed thus I lost the $10,200 credit availability. I already spoke with Citibank and going to send a letter and proof they requested together with my detail explanation of what happened and when I found out about the missing account incident. They are going to help me to contact the big three credit bureuas since I couldn't reach them online and on the phone. I will also send seperate letter to each one of them.

Thank you mountaindewvoltage for the detail info on PRG. I will keep in mind not to apply for any credit before getting the house. I am both excited and at the same time worry. I guess for me PRG does fit my modest annual flying.   I am hoping that this missing Citibank account issue would resolved within this month since it is dragging down my scores. Experian is more up-to-date than EQ and TU and all of them have the missing account. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

I noticed that you have a lot of Amex cards and related cards. That is simply awesome. Do you have better APR under NFCU and USAA than under AMEX directly? They sent me several pre-selected offers but I simply ignoring them the whole time. Of course, I better not apply anyone of them at this moment. I supposed to buy the house I saw on Zillow around three months ago after getting the loan offer but somebody turned in the paperwork to buy the house first before me. The loan offer has already expired. Actually my current credit scores has gone up a lot higher than last time even with the current missing account fiasco. 

[RicHowe]

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@Anonymouswrote:

Hi,

I keep getting Amex PRG offers from the company every 2-3 months beside the offer to upgrade my current Amex card to BCP from BCE. I have been ignoring them. However, I am curious about Amex PRG.

My current situation:

My last official FICO score was around Score(Dec 16, 2017) EQ >720?, EXP ?, TU >730?  on December 2017. I received the official score from Veterans United Home Loans the month before (Nov 2017). Since then, I haven't check the official score but using the estimate from free FICO score through Citibank (745) and Barclay (724). Those scores also haven't been updated yet since I just recently (a week ago) paid off around ~$9000 off my credit card balance (including Amex $3550). So I am not ready to get the new fico scores from myfico.com. My utilization is around 29%. I also received a $3000 CLI from Citibank and $4000 from Amex ($19800 limit) so I am hoping to see my  utilization going down further. I am planning to lower it down to 22% by next month. 

My questions:

-If I apply for Amex PRG, how much credit point would I get hit on my current FICO score? 

-It says that I have to pay back every month with no interest. What if there is a balance, how much will it affect my credit score? I read that this card doesn't affect the FICO overall credit utilization due to no preset limit. 

-I only travel internationally once a year if not once in two years. I also travel one or twice using local flights per year. Total miles probably around 10k. Is that wise to apply for Amex PRG since I am not a frequent flyer?

-I am planning to buy a house between 1.5 to 2 months (if my Fico scores go up in time) and I like to have a card that I could use without worrying about utilization and getting a rewards for spending it during the move. Will those purchase (not airfare) count towards reward points and how much?

Thank you all in advance by helping me to make my decision. I love this site and I am hoping will spend more time on it this year. 

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At the risk of being pedantic, you are aware that the PRG is a CHARGE card not a CREDIT card so revolving balances are not allowed  (unless they offer you a Pay Over Time feature after youve had the card awhile, but that's another discussion entirely).

[Anonymous]

Hi RicHowe, now I know. I was not familar with it last time. I read it somewhere earlier that you can treat it like a debit card but with the extra benefits of earning the reward points. Pay it off right after you use it. If you don't use it a lot let's say just average $3000 to $5000 a year, will they cancel your card because of a low usage? Too bad we cannot pay mortage with credit card anymore. Can I use Amex PRG to pay utility bills and getting reward points for it? Thanks