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I'll be CLIing my BCE on Nov. 7th for my 61st day CLI, hoping to get my $1k limit to $3k.
What does AMEX look for so I can improve my odds?
My statement will close Oct 19, and as usual, I'll be paying a chuck of my balance the day before so I only report no more than 10% of my limit.
I'm also thinking about not using my card from Oct 19th to Nov 7th in order not to have a high balance on the card (I use it for groceries and gas and restuarants mostly, every week, and with a small CL, it gets high pretty fast).
I fear since my score took a hit with all of my new lines reporting dropping my score 23 points since my AMEX approval, I will get denied, however.
Thoughts?
Not certain we can be fully accurate on this one, fact is some people who hardly use the card get the 3X and some who heavily use it (and PIFing) don't. There's a lot of details which aren't generally shared, may even somewhat depend where you typically shop as Open123 astutely suggested previously... Amex certainly isn't going to tell us.
Personally I'm still running as much of my financial life as I can through a card I want a CLI on, or trying to establish a relationship with the lender; this applies doubly to Amex since they get paid on both sides of the transaction; however, the reduction in score from new accounts might be problematic, or it may not be at all. Amex absolutely uses their own internal metric, and we just don't know how that factors in all cases.
In any event I'd hit the monkey button regardless if it were me. Worst case a denial and a note in the internal record, which is likely irrevelant anyway in the mid/long-term future as eventually almost everyone with good behavior should qualify for a CLI.
FWIW, AmEx bumped me from $10k to $22.5k just after my 61 day mark and I rarely used the card (just enough to get the sign-up bonus). I made sure to PIF a week before requesting the CLI.
When do you start counting the 61 days, is from approval date?
@Anonymous wrote:When do you start counting the 61 days, is from approval date?
Activation date. You can always ask a CSR how many days it's been before you ask for a CLI to double check.