Just figured I'd throw my experience out there since so much of the info I see about the Optima Card/Program is vague/old.
- Defaulted on 2 cards in 2020, both around ~$1500 each
- Received multiple offer emails for both accounts since last year stating if I paid the balance in full they would approve me for an Optima Card - signed up for a payment plan to pay off one account in mid April 2024
- Made my final payment 12/12/2024
- Received letter on 1/13/2025 stating my account was paid in full with paper application for the Optima Card (it's a small tear away at the bottom of the letter, most of the information is pre printed for you and they provide a prepaid return envelope.) Mailed paper app on 1/15/2025.
- Received notifications that Amex pulled EX & TU on 1/22/25, checked the Amex application status page and it shows that I was approved for an Optima account on 1/21/25. Scores for both are somewhere around ~600
noteworthy: I paid off one account in full, I paid nothing on the other. I still get Optima offer emails for the other account. According to my credit report the second account hasn't reported since 2021 but it's still there and obviously Amex is aware of its existence. I assume since the Optima application is a second chance program and required to be paper apps that they're manually reviewed, so I was fully expecting to get declined because I still have a defaulted account lingering out there - but apparently not!
Also, since I set up my payment plan I've noticed the offers have changed and now state they will reinstate your old card as whatever it was when it closed (in my case it was a BCE) but when I signed up that was not the case & the application I got was specifically for the no rewards/$49 AF Optima Card. I'm not gonna complain considering I expected them to say nice try buddy you still owe us $1500. I doubt I'll be able to rebuild a relationship with Amex until I pay off the other account, but I thought it was interesting they bothered to even give me an approval after only paying off one account.
