(Update 11/21/22: Official press release today)
American Express recently began showing some people an ‘Apply With Confidence’ feature whereby you’re told before the final application whether you’ll be approved. After assuring card approval, you’ll then give Amex the go-ahead to pull the necessary credit report. This way, you’ll only swallow the hard credit ding with the confidence of card approval. Apple card has a similar feature as well.
Honestly Amex usually doesn’t pull the credit for someone who is an existing Amex customer which makes this feature irrelevant for most of us. Interesting feature nonetheless. Just note that this feature does not show for everyone, you’ll see on the original card application whether it’s an option for you.
I first learned about this feature today from a OMAAT post and it looks like it’s been around for a few months when it’s discussed on MyFico and Reddit.
Tried the precheck, got back”Offer Selected for You.” Which should mean getting approval. Credit score>800, OK for income. No special factors. Then got denied. With hard pull showing for years ahead. Which will also mean it will be harder to get an AMEX based on number of applications on file. Nasty.
Seems like they are formalizing something that was already possible, you could always check if you were going to be approved or not by reading the message at the top of the application page, if it said something like “applying to expand your membership is easy” it would be a normal application that could be approved or denied, but if you were going to be approved the sentence would straight up tell you that you are pre-approved and I’ve never seen that message be wrong before. Amex does regular soft checks on everyone and mostly uses those soft checks for approvals, which is why they don’t even bother pulling credit for existing customers.
The only feature what I got from Amex is “Popup of Death”
Does anyone know if, just before applying for an Amex card, it helps your approval odds to make a payment on your existing Amex cards? So, for example, you apply after your statement date but before your payment date. Does Amex look at your current balance?
As far as I can tell, if you are an existing customer, Amex uses the monthly Experian soft check which you can check for yourself by going to your account page and then profile (there is a link to the FICO score there). It’s updated once a month and if you are a customer it uses that soft check for your approval, even if it’s been a few weeks. I’m pretty certain of this because there’s a way to check your pre-approvals on Amex and those pre-approvals update exactly on the day that Experian FICO check updates. So the best thing to do is look at what date Amex does your monthly Experian soft pull and make sure your credit is as high as possible on that day (by pre-paying all your cards minus 1 to get your utilization down, etc).
Does this work with business cards also?
If I am understanding this correctly, you can apply and you’ll be informed if you’re approved (or not approved) before final submission, but that doesn’t mean you’ll get the bonus if you’ve already had the card before, right?
Since they usually don’t do hard pull for existing customers so is this good for new Amex customers only?
Right and right
No, it’s also good for current AmEx cardholders because it gives you a way of knowing if you could get a card without being committed to apply for and receive it now.
“Honestly Amex usually doesn’t pull the credit for someone who is an existing Amex customer which makes this feature irrelevant for most of us.”
I disagree. This gives a way to find out if you are now eligible to get an AmEx card, without you committing to actually take the card right now. You can get the eligibility information now, but actually get the card later when it better fits with your plan, i.e. there are other cards you want to get first, and you just want to know which cards you are likely to be able to get later, so you can plan accordingly.
The last three cards I got approved for did not require any credit checks.
Credit checks are irrelevant to my comment. They’re not the issue at all.
Instead the point is it gives you a way of knowing if you could get a card without being committed to apply for and receive it now.
Before, the only way to find out if you were eligible for a card was to first submit the application, so that you’re committed to taking it.
If you are an existing Amex customer, you’ve always had the ability to know if you will be approved for a card or not. You simply open a card application while logged in (so that your info is prefilled) and look at the sentence at the top of the application. If it says “applying to expand your membership is easy” it will be a normal application that can be approved or denied, but if it says “you’re pre-approved [your name]” then you will be approved. This new Amex feature is just making this system clearer and expanding it to non-members.
Pop up with CON-fidence
Cool dad joke
After multiple pop ups trying to get the Schwab Plat, I finally tried calling 2 nights ago to see if I would have better luck. The representative also gave me an approval decision before submitting the app, and I was cleared for the SUB!
My player 2 has only applied for 2 cards (vanilla plat and brilliant) and now gets the pop up on all AMEX credit cards. She was last approved probably 3 months ago so its not the 90 day rule blocking her sub. So you would recommend calling in and trying to get approval to see if something is holding her up?
I wonder is this is true with the Morgan Stanley Plat as well?
I wonder if you see this if it would mean there would be no popup
No, you can do this and get the popup.