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My friend’s daughter who is looking to get into the points game.
– She is a student, currently lower income (but I expect this to change once she starts working).
+ She has held a credit-builder credit card for some years and has operated it extremely well – no adverse repayment history, no cash advances, kept within credit limit, operated below threshold for percentage of credit used.
+ She is ready to graduate to the next level but Amex does not seem to have an entry level card for students in the UK (an omission if you ask me).
/ Her credit score (if it matters at all) is okay.
I believe removal of the credit-builder card and substitution for a better card will boost her credit score, but as these things go, it’s a catch-22 until a company accepts you for credit.
So, the question: She would like to have an Amex card. Is there anything we can do to increase her chances of being accepted?
She received 7/10 for the soft searches for some of the Amex cards, but it’s that niggling 3/10 chance that she won’t get it – obviously we do not want to jeopardise her credit file with a hard search that amounts to nought.
TIA
The big difference with Amex is that take into consideration household income so that if applying from her parents’ address and they are Amex holders, her prospects are considerably improved. Also, if they are holders, I believe it helps if she is already a supplementary on one of their cards. I put my son as a supp on my BAPP as soon as he was 18 and then he successfully applied for a PRG a few months later while a student with essentially no income.
I’m a student. Have always entered a low income on the form but had no problem getting approved for the Cashback card, BAPP then Business Gold. I will try Platinum next.
My parents both have Amex cards with me as supplementary on both – perhaps that helped.
I applied with a £10K income working part-time about two years ago and got the Platinum Cashback and Gold cards. I did have a student credit card with HSBC, and that perhaps helped to get the credit history.
One thing that I did was that I put down that I was a part-time worker. I thought that putting student with a £10K income wasn’t right.
I would still keep the credit builder account as this will be the longest credit line on their credit file, closing this could be detrimental
I held the HSBC student credit card for around 4 years and closed it as soon as I got an Amex. No issues at all.
Morning and thank you for all replies – some very helpful tips here!
I’ll report back with any updates for data points.
I successfully applied for my first Amex on my 18th birthday (although to be fair, I did have a job lined up at that point). I’d say go for it – a hard search is not that big a deal, even if the application ends up unsuccessful.
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