American Express Platinum Charge Card

Beepster

Hi,

I thought I would ask this question here before I subject myself to a good old credit search footprint.

I have the following cards:-

Amex Platinum Credit Card CL £5500 CL AVAIL £4000
Egg Card CL £2800 CL AVAIL £2000
HSBC Card CL £3500 CL AVAIL £3200
Halifax CL £3000 CL AVAIL £300

I want to apply for the American Express Platinum Charge Card as I put through about £2000 per month in work expenses and my cash back offer on Amex Credit Card is not that good. I want to go for reward points. Do you know how difficult the Amex Charge Card is to get?

I have a 999 out of 1000 credit score on Experian but rent and do not own my house. Earning over £80,000 pa

Any ideas?

Thanks
Beepster

Avallon_2

You should be fine because you:
1. Have a decent credit rating
2. Have a good income
3. Are willing to pay the annual charge

The charge card is more like a debit than credit card.

skyrider007

Since you already hold an AMEX card, it shouldn't be too difficult to obtain the card providing that you meet all of their criteria. However I personally think you should not apply for the card as you currently carry balance on several cards. The reason being that the charge card do not provide credit for more than 50 days as balances need to be paid off in full each month. If you would like to get reward points then I suggest you apply for the classic American Express (Green) Charge Card. You earn reward points, gets purchase protection, free travel insurance and discounts as you do on the Platinum card less the posh benefits (i.e. private sales at Harrods, airport lounge access and private jet hire) for hundreds of £'s less of annual fee per year.

ICan'tStandIt

Beepster wrote: »

Hi,

I thought I would ask this question here before I subject myself to a good old credit search footprint.

I have the following cards:-

Amex Platinum Credit Card CL £5500 CL AVAIL £4000
Egg Card CL £2800 CL AVAIL £2000
HSBC Card CL £3500 CL AVAIL £3200
Halifax CL £3000 CL AVAIL £300

I want to apply for the American Express Platinum Charge Card as I put through about £2000 per month in work expenses and my cash back offer on Amex Credit Card is not that good. I want to go for reward points. Do you know how difficult the Amex Charge Card is to get?

I have a 999 out of 1000 credit score on Experian but rent and do not own my house. Earning over £80,000 pa

Any ideas?

Thanks
Beepster

That last bit definitely puts you in with a very good chance.

As it has a "no pre-set spending limit" rather than a set credit limit, you need to let them know how much you will be spending in the first few months as well as any higher spend as and when it happens.

You seem to have a lot of unused credit, maybe lower it /get rid of some to reduce your exposure ?

Beepster

Hi,

Thanks for your tips. I applied yesterday afternoon and got a "Thank you... we need to look at your application more carefully...." They will let me know within 10 days!

What's the bet they say yes or no!

Beepster

ctc9310

Avallon wrote: »

You should be fine because you:
1. Have a decent credit rating
2. Have a good income
3. Are willing to pay the annual charge

The charge card is more like a debit than credit card.

Hi Avallon,

Can you tell me what is consider a "decent credit rating"? I got approved for the Nectar card but I would love an AMEX cashback card.

Cory

simplyfinance

Hi Cory,

Hopefully you got the card you were looking for. I thought I'd respond to this as we get asked about credit ratings quite a lot by people visiting our website. Firstly, to have a good credit rating you need to have shown yourself to be a responsible borrower in the past. Strange as it may seem, if you have never borrowed money before, your credit rating will actually be worse - the reason being that credit companies have no past information on which to base their assessment of your application. So, to build up a good credit rating, you should have a card and pay it off in full and on time each month.

However, your credit rating is determined by a variety of factors, your borrowing history being only one of them. Ideally, you should have a steady job, and have lived in the same property for a number of years. Credit card companies like stability, it shows that you are unlikely to disappear without trace and without paying your bills. You should also hold back on the number of credit applications that you make, limiting yourself to one at a time. The reason for this is that each time you make an application for a loan or a credit card, this is logged on your credit file. Seeing dozens of applications is likely to put off the next company you apply to, and will make it less likely that your application will be accepted. Also, don't have more credit available than you need. If you have old cards sitting around with £2000 limits, pay them off and close them to avoid this affecting your prospects of applying this time.

The best way of finding out whether your credit rating is good is to apply to see a copy of your credit report. This is available from one of the UK's credit reference agencies, Experian (the largest), Equifax and Callcredit, and you can usually get it free by signing up to a free trial (but make sure to cancel in time if you don't want to subscribe to the service!). At worst, it should only cost you a couple of pounds. There is a chance that mistakes have been made on your credit report, so it's definitely advisable to check through it before you apply for credit, and then ask for any errors to be corrected.

Having said that, as your credit score will be different for each company, it is difficult to pinpoint what constitutes a 'decent' one. For the AMEX card you mentioned, you will need to be a 'prime' borrower, conforming to all of the points I mentioned above, and possibly also with a minimum annual income. However, for a loan company specialising in people with bad credit, an ideal customer may have had debt problems in the past, will have a propensity to overspend and will be less likely to pay their bills each month. So you might find yourself getting 6 different credit scores with 6 different card providers! Your first step should be to check out your credit report and make sure everything is order before you apply.

chattychappy

I had Amex Plat Chargecard for a few years. Just a few remarks:

1) The snob value has long since gone. (Besides the "Centurion" card is now their top level.) I would say the exception is if you are very young, maybe it will impress your friends. I've done business all over the world and stayed in fine hotels. Other things count for much more.

2) For foreign spend, you pay around 3% (can't remember exactly). You're better off with Nationwide/Abbey Zero/Post Office etc. This 3% outweighs the MR benefits they bundle. Of course if your company covers this, maybe it doesn't matter to you.

3) It's not as widely accepted as visa/mastercard. Sometimes even when it is officially accepted, there can be problems. For a while Eurostar's website wouldn't take Amex, even though officially it was supposed to.

4) Most of the "special treatment" type service they promise is baloney - you are still faced with phone numbers answered by machines and bashing in numbers on your tone pad. The "extras" are generally outsourced and prone to change.

5) There IS a limit to what you can spend on it. They just don't tell you the limit. Provided your spending pattern doesn't suddenly change, you should be OK. Personally I prefer the reassurance of having an agreed limit - though I appreciate credit card companies are now in the business of lowering limits without warning.

6) The "priority pass" thing is great if you (or someone else) travels a lot in Economy. But if you travel in business/first or have a frequent flyer card with an airline it's less useful because you get lounge access anyway - usually a better and more conveniently located lounge.

7) The bundled travel insurance mitigates the annual fee very well - particularly if you give additional cards to friends/colleagues. (Actually you don't physically have to give them the cards.) Unlike a "family" policy, these people don't have to be related to you. BUT, check if your business stuff is really covered if that's important to you.

8) Amex travel service etc., is all pretty poor compared with a decent local travel agent. The "2 for 1" type ticket offers are usually poor value because you pay full price for the first ticket which can be more than double the cost of a discounted ticket.

9) You get more days to pay than with a credit card. Generally if you pay off your bill by the time the next statement is generated, they don't penalise you. Ie up to 60 days credit. But if you pay DD, they will take the money earlier.

10) You don't get s75 cover.

For the reward points, consider also the MBNA/BMI deals (complete with welcome bonus). BMI is in Star Alliance and has one of the most generous schemes. It might change if they combine with Lufthansa.

Amex membership rewards is pretty good, but they do mess about with it from time to time. It works best if you can combine it with an airline scheme where you fly alot already.

They will generally take anyone that has a decent enough rating to get a conventional credit card.

I peaked at a spend of about £5000 a month and on the MR scheme got a business class return to Asia with Air France out of it. But most of my spend shifted to US$ and with the forex fee and all the various credit card deals around I stopped using it for spending. I kept it for just the insurance and priority pass (I was on a flight every 3 or 4 weeks). I cancelled it when I stopped being UK resident - they offered me Gold for free for a while which I kept as an emergency. Eventually I cancelled that too. I've never seen a reason to go back to them.

If you fly economy a lot, consider Diners Club. Some airports have priority check-ins for Diners Club holders.

xycom1

I heard there is a referral scheme - 5000 MR points for the existing platinum charge card holder and 5000 MR points for the new card holder once a spend threshold is reached?

Any platinum charge card holders on the forum to confirm that, and if so want to hook me up with a referral?

PeteTheBrit

xycom1,

There is a referral scheme for the AMEX Platinum currently. 42,000 points for the customer signing up when referred by an existing customer. This gets you 2,000 more than the standard signup offer. If anybody wants a referral, all i need is your email address...i'd be happy to help.

xycom1

Thanks Pete, already signed up when they were doing the 40000pts for a £1500 spend. So already got the card. Unsurprisingly, I am also happy to refer anybody that wants to sign up too.