Amex approval

[Anonymous]

Approved for gold delta and green card on the same day. My score took a 9 point hit, when can I expect it to bounce back?

[Anonymous]

Will go back. If nothing comes up in a month.

[Anonymous]

Congrats on both approvals!  I'm guessing that you didnt lose 9 points on just an inquiry or 2, however, so your question isnt the easiest to answer.  

[Anonymous]

That's the only thing that has changed. It is puzzling.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
That's the only thing that has changed. It is puzzling.

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I  hear what you're saying, friend.  What folks on here say often though, is that is the "trigger event" that got the change to show, but other factors were working for awhile.  I'll try to help how I can, and maybe others will chime in too.  I guess my first question is what are you using to measure your score?  

Have any balances posted that were higher than they were last time around?  

The textbook answer is that inquiries stop effecting score after a year.  They may count less after 6 months(and other intervals) as well, but it generally wouldnt be much.  Do you know how many inquiries youve had within the last year on whatever bureau was used?  

There is also a chance you ccan lose points once the new accounts post, depending on how it changes average age of accounts and total available credit/utilization.  You can gain points on that as well, it really just depends.  American Express can take a couple of cycles to report though.  I recently was approved for one of their cards, and am waiting for it to report as well, so I can kind of relate.  I lost some points as well(some were from a balance reporting), so I've been in a similar boat waiting to see what I can get back.  Let's hope that the cards will effect your profile in such a way that they will give you a nice score boost once they report.  

[Anonymous]

9 points lost for an inquiry on EX isn't out of the question.  I lost 14 points from 2 inquiries on EX back in may; my score dropped from 822 to 808 from just the inquiries.  Keep in mind when your new accounts report, your score may drop more due to a reduction in AAoA and/or AoYA.  When my new accounts reported, my score dropped from 808 to 804.  Fast forward 2 months, I'm already back at 818, so I've basically recovered the 14 points from the inquiries but not the other 4 from the new accounts yet.  I have a pretty thick/aged file though, so it can absorb and recover from these things rather quickly.

I would say that with healthy credit behavior, your score within 3-4 months will probably be back to where you were and within 6 months could be a couple of points higher.

[Anonymous]

Yikes, I didnt realize inquiries could cause that much of a drop.  Were they the only inquiries?  Even so, that's tough to wrap my mind around!  Were there any special circumstances??  Thanks for sharing that, I appreciate learning all of the new things we do on here.  

[Glen_M]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Approved for gold delta and green card on the same day. My score took a 9 point hit, when can I expect it to bounce back?

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Not enough info to tell if the points drop was just for inquiries.  It will also probably lower for new accounts and a lower average age of accounts.  

In the scheme of things, a 9 point fluctuation is just a ripple, and will likely recover in a few months.

[Anonymous]

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@Glen_M wrote:

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Not enough info to tell if the points drop was just for inquiries.  It will also probably lower for new accounts and a lower average age of accounts.  

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I get the impression that the OP was providing that information following the reporting of the inquiries, but before the reporting of the accounts... as there would likely be about 2 months between those two events.  Assuming that his post came a few days after getting approved for those 2 Amex products, it's only possible that the inquiries were part of his 9 point drop as the accounts definitely wouldn't have shown up on his credit report yet, thus no possible drop to AAoA or AoYA.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Yikes, I didnt realize inquiries could cause that much of a drop.  Were they the only inquiries?  Even so, that's tough to wrap my mind around!  Were there any special circumstances??  Thanks for sharing that, I appreciate learning all of the new things we do on here.  

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I think it's all very profile-dependent and can vary greatly from person to person.  The good news is that even though my drop was perhaps a bit more than would generally be expected, the recovery was quicker than expected as well.  To be specific, my 14 point score drop came on 5/2/17 and my 14 points were back on 6/24/17, only 53 days later.

I sort of think of these changes similar to something learned in science class back in school, where the time it takes to warm something up is directly proportional to the time it takes for it to cool back down.  So, you can have a box containing air where you can warm the air very quickly inside, but the temperature will quickly drop back down to room temperature just as fast as it took to warm it once your source of heat is gone.  Conversely, you could have an equal size fish tank full of water that takes a long time to heat up and as a result will take a long time to cool back down.