American Express Discussion Area

lisyloo

I would suggest that you get all 3 credit reports.
Getting one does not show the whole picture.
You can sign up for free trials with Experian and Equifax but if you don't want the hassle of cancelling then get the statutory report for £2.
It takes about a week in the post.
There is really no need to pay a lot extra for an on-line report (although it's nice to have it instantly).
You can get call credit for free from https://www.annualcreditreport.co.uk
You can also get exquifax for free if you have a capital one card.

So check for errors.
Other explanations are

1) You have too much available credit on other cards (consider closing those you aren't using or reducing limits)
2) They have tightened their criteria dur to the global credit crunch and it's nothing at all to do with you.
3) You have a good report but you simply don't fit their idea of a target customer.

You can check for errors and whether you have too much available credit.
Beyond that you'll probably never now.
I don't know what Amex appeals are like. I've won an Appeal with Egg and got totally ignored by GE money so I really don't know.
I would have thought Amex would deal with it fairly.

Aegis

I already tried appealing because I ran into a rejection for a mobile phone contract earlier this week (successfully appealed, they had been putting my address into the system incorrectly) and decided to appeal because of my extremely good credit score, but all I got was another rejection letter with no explanation as to why I failed to meet their own criteria.

Annoying really, as I actually wanted to use this card quite a bit...

lisyloo

I agree it's annoying and I sympathise.

However there is no "right" to credit from a private organisation.
They can pick and choose who they want.

The credit crunch that we are seeing right now is unprecedented so it's really not suprising that credit is harder to come by even if in this case there is no obvious reason.

Chrissey

Hi all, hope this is the right place to post this...

Has anyone had the trouble I have had trying to transfer balances from American expreess cashback card to Capital One. Three times I have tried and CO now have sent me a letter stating the Amex cards are not rcognised by their system. I only went for the CO cards because it was 0% transfer fee. What a waste of time and energy

Kavanne

I have a ‘bad’ credit rating.

I missed a payment on my nationwide card in Jan because my statement didn’t arrive, I called as soon as I realised I’d not seen a statement in over a month and paid there and then. Still ruined my rating though (only ever late payment)

Anyway, I got approved for a Nectar Amex, but only with a limit of £1400. Ideally I’d like more, do you think there’s any chance of appealing this? I do have significant other incomes/sources of cash other than my job (only used job for getting the card). Do you think if I could provide proof of how much money I have invested, they would consider increasing my limit? Basically I want to put all my purchases for my new house on it (~£7000 budget) and I don’t want to have to be paying it off every week in order to be able to use it again!

HOWEVER, now I've also been credit scored 3 times in the last sixth months (my new job, my mortgage and for the Amex) which reduced my rating even more, and I am concerned they won't take into account the circumstances outside this.

Kavanne

So no one's ever tried to increase their Amex credit limit?

allyjb

Alternative AMEX card....Just came across new AMEX card at BMI (I previously had their Mastercard) - didn't think changing to AMEX was a great move for them, but to make it a bit easier, they're offering 0% on balance transfers for 12 months (3% fee)....but the good bit is you'll also get 20,000 miles to use with BMI as a bonus. That's enough for a return flight in Europe as well as the balance transfer. Not bad I thought.

nshears

Kavanne wrote: »

So no one's ever tried to increase their Amex credit limit?

They let me increase mine from 2400 to 4800 after about 4 months (salary income roughly 32k). During the 4 months i had paid the full balance on time every month

Kavanne

nshears wrote: »

They let me increase mine from 2400 to 4800 after about 4 months (salary income roughly 32k). During the 4 months i had paid the full balance on time every month

I imagine I will be paying off the card 3-4 times a month if I want to earn all the nectar points I can, with the puny £700 limit they have given me. I have £7000 of things to buy for our new house.

I have emailed customer service saying I was told by applications I could review my credit limit once I had activated my card, then told after I had activated my card I would need to wait 6 months and should have called before the account was activated!

**woody123**

Hi,

Apologies if this question has already been answered on this thread but i have read through a few pages and can't see any posts relating to my question..

I would like to apply for the american express nectar card through cashback site quidco.. only when i am directed to the american express site it seems to want me to have a platinum card where i think the the mininum salary is 20k and mine falls a little short of that.. Could you please tell me if there is something i am missing or do i just apply for a platinum and they offer me a nectar as an alternative..

Thanks in Advance