A lot of people have been complaining about getting the Amex eligibility popup denial when applying for a new American Express card, despite the fact that they are seemingly eligible for the bonus due to never having that card before.
Many reports indicate that if you put some spend on your Amex cards, the eligibility checker may change over to allow you the bonus. Some have spent as little as $600 over the course of just a few days and gotten the system to give them the okay when they tried again. This doesn’t work for everyone, but anecdotal evidence suggests putting some spend can really be effective.
We wrote about the popup issue a few weeks ago and mentioned this idea of putting spend on the card, but some more confirmations have come in and I figured it’s worth highlighting.
From a business perspective it makes sense that Amex would only want to reward actual spenders with signup bonuses, though I’m honestly surprised that they have coded into their eligibility checker to check the person’s history. It’s possible they have somewhere in the backend your ‘Amex Score’, sort of like your Uber Rating, which is dynamic based on various factors like your spend history, and the eligibility checker only gives the green light to someone with a certain score.
Regardless, it’s good to know that by simply being a better Amex customer and actually using your Amex cards can put you in good graces.
