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How strict is the Amex minimum income requirement?
My wife is looking to apply for the Platinum card but works part time and doesn’t quite meet the £35k threshold. Household income is somewhat higher. Would it be an automatic “no”?
She would not be eligible for the Gold bonus unfortunately as an alternative as she already holds another Amex.
They’re getting stricter (even with higher earners), and the only way to answer your question properly is for her to apply, since everybody’s circumstances are different.
What other Amex card does she hold?
If it is an ARCC (free Amex rewards card) she can try her luck and upgrade it through this link?:
https://www.americanexpress.com/en-gb/benefits/upgrade/platinum/
The blurb text says “upgrade from Gold to Platinum”, but read this thread for background:
https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/upgrade-from-gold-to-platinum/
She’s got one of the cashback cards that she’s held for years so no upgrade opportunities. She could apply for gold and subsequently try upgrading to Platinum but hardly worthwhile if she can’t even get the gold bonus.
She could apply for the free rewards card since there are no fees and try and upgrade that – but there are no guarantees with the upgrade either.
(The ARCC upgrade to Platinum (although working) seems to be a loophole based on the fact it is not mentioned anywhere on the upgrade website).And if there are no guarantees, then she may as well use the hard credit search on the Platinum card and be done with it.
What does the Amex card eligibility checker say when she plugs in her details?
Remember – you are asked to declare your “Annual Personal Income”, not your salary by Amex. So if your wife has e.g. £33k salary, £1k interest income and £1k dividend income then her Annual Personal Income would be £35k, not £33k. You declare this total income and then tick the boxes that the income comes from. Do not make up this number as your wife may be asked to evidence it! But if you are fortunate enough to have savings etc then it could push her over the line.
Sources of Annual Personal Income
– Salary, including contractual bonus
– Pension
– Investment and/or rental income
– State benefits (only include benefits which contribute to your disposable income. For example, do not include Housing Benefit)
– Private benefits (includes spousal maintenance/ailment)
– Student grants and/or bursariesRemember – you are asked to declare your “Annual Personal Income”, not your salary by Amex. So if your wife has e.g. £33k salary, £1k interest income and £1k dividend income then her Annual Personal Income would be £35k, not £33k. You declare this total income and then tick the boxes that the income comes from. Do not make up this number as your wife may be asked to evidence it! But if you are fortunate enough to have savings etc then it could push her over the line.
Sources of Annual Personal Income
– Salary, including contractual bonus
– Pension
– Investment and/or rental income
– State benefits (only include benefits which contribute to your disposable income. For example, do not include Housing Benefit)
– Private benefits (includes spousal maintenance/ailment)
– Student grants and/or bursariesDue to the new rules my son does not meet the £35k so his only option is the Gold Amex card currently.
If I was to pay him a monthly allowance, would this be classed as personal income so he would then exceed the £35k threshold?
Not sure if this could be classed as a Private Benefit?He could put that as “other income” on his application form, I don’t know if they would want evidence of it being a long term arrangement though.
The Gold card isn’t a bad option though, especially as it’s free for the first year. If he already holds it, Amex might require him to close it before accepting him for a different card.
If I was to pay him a monthly allowance, would this be classed as personal income so he would then exceed the £35k threshold?
Not sure if this could be classed as a Private Benefit?Could certainly be classed as fraudulent.
I can’t see that it would be fraudulent, unless you were declaring the same money on 2 different applications. Plenty of people do give their kids an allowance. I’ve also read on here that a home maker can put that they receive £xxx from their partner’s income for undertaking that role, which is a similar sort of thing.
Whether Amex currently considers it a reliable or qualifying source income is another issue though!
I’m also not sure it would be counted as fraudulent, in previous generations husbands often paid their wives ‘housekeeping money’ (what an awful expression, so 1950’s) when they stayed at home and to look after a young family..
I had a career break for a few years and OH transferred monies to my bank account via DD each month to pay all the bills, food, clothes, savings etc. etc. I certainly don’t feel we indulged in fraudulent behaviour. It was just a practical arrangement as he had a demanding job and I had time to manage the finances.
Whilst I appreciate this forum is mainly male based, I would imagine the above still happens in the more conventional (wrong word) parts of society. We have never had joint bank accounts. Didn’t 30 years ago, don’t now.
Time to lecture @Misty…
Please get a joint bank account. Use it to pay all your monthly household bills such as tv licence, council tax, gas/electricity, phone/broadband, water, headforpoints premium subscription etc.
The point of this is at some point in the future, one of you will expire. If the expiree is the person who pays all these bills then it makes life much more difficult as on informing the bank of this newly expired status, the bank promptly freezes the account.
So on top of the whole grieving thing, the survivor would then need to phone a bunch of call centres trying to sort everything before direct debits start bouncing. If you have a joint bank account then the bank merely transfers the joint account to be solely in the name of the surviving spouse and you can listen to hold music from all your utilities when you are feeling more robust.
There endeth today’s sermon.
‘housekeeping money’ wasn’t her income though. It would never have been declared on a tax return.
It wasn’t the equivalent of a salary to the wife for managing the house.
It was money for her to buy food and cleaning products and other household necessities.
This question has been asked and answered here quite a few times. The onus is on the applicant to demonstrate that (s)he genuinely has the income stated within the application and creating some false income based on any sort of temporary or fictitious arrangement is bound to run into trouble. That would obviously include any repayment of the allowance.
Amex,unlike many other providers, will typically approve applications based on some rather rudimentary checks and then carry out more serious income/status checks later. Amex also uses services like National Hunter on an ongoing basis to see what income figures may have been used in other applications. A long term regular ‘allowance’ payment should be absolutely fine and an application shouldn’t be made too soon after the arrangement starts. It is worth bearing in mind that paying an allowance that pauperises the payee can have other undesirable effects in this context.
Time to lecture @Misty…
Please get a joint bank account. Use it to pay all your monthly household bills such as tv licence, council tax, gas/electricity, phone/broadband, water, headforpoints premium subscription etc.
The point of this is at some point in the future, one of you will expire. If the expiree is the person who pays all these bills then it makes life much more difficult as on informing the bank of this newly expired status, the bank promptly freezes the account.
So on top of the whole grieving thing, the survivor would then need to phone a bunch of call centres trying to sort everything before direct debits start bouncing. If you have a joint bank account then the bank merely transfers the joint account to be solely in the name of the surviving spouse and you can listen to hold music from all your utilities when you are feeling more robust.
There endeth today’s sermon.
Oh dear you are scaring me now Froggee.
This kind of arrangement was yonks ago and now we have all sorts of kind of things in place, joint, singular, pensions ISA’s, Bonds, credit cards etc. If one of us leaves this moral coil, there are plenty of slush funds around to get the live one through the grief moneywise. However I do take your point.
Also I thought if you had joint accounts on the death of person one, everything was frozen, so the live one still can’t get at the monies ?
@BA Flyer IHG Stayer
The thing with the housekeeping money years ago was not put on a Tax Return anywhere as for many years we were both PAYE.
I also remember in the 70’s my late father coming home with a cash pay packet and splitting the monies between him and my Mum, she got the Lions share , presumably because she was lumbered with bringing up me.
@JDB love the word pauperises
Edit, What is a headforpoints premium subscription please ?
@Misty I second getting a joint account for the reasons @Froggee laid out. There might also be issues if one of you were to become incapacitated at some later date (Sorry for bringing up depressing topics on a Saturday morning!)
We have a joint account for the main stuff, one reason is that I am much better at managing money than my OH – e.g. turning it into points and vouchers! Hoping my teenager will find some sort of temporary job after the A-levels while he decides what he “really” wants to do so he can apply for an Amex as well.
*He’s been pauperising us for long enough 😂
@Misty I second getting a joint account for the reasons @Froggee laid out. There might also be issues if one of you were to become incapacitated at some later date (Sorry for bringing up depressing topics on a Saturday morning!)
We have a joint account for the main stuff, one reason is that I am much better at managing money than my OH – e.g. turning it into points and vouchers! Hoping my teenager will find some sort of temporary job after the A-levels while he decides what he “really” wants to do so he can apply for an Amex as well.
I’m so sorry NL I pressed report first not quote.
We both have current accounts with the same bank, so we would probably do this quite easily, just for the utilities. I will have a word.
Like you I feel I am better at managing the money than OH, (he is so not interested) so tend to make most of the financial decisions.
It always amazes me that there are so many people in high-powered jobs who pay little attention to their finances! Mind you, I have several high-earning friends and relatives who aren’t remotely interested in earning avios or hotel points and would never consider flying business class … !
In my unfortunate experience, life assurance pays out quite promptly on being furnished with the death certificate. Pensions also – surprisingly quick payment of “we owe you at least this and there may be more depending on [paperwork]”.
Every customer will eventually die and every nontrivial-sized organisation has a functioning process for dealing with death of a customer.
But yes, you do need accessible money for when it happens and it is an awful lot of phone calls and letters.
@Misty – the joint account is not about accessing money but significantly easing the administrative burden when something that is inevitable happens. And after this inevitable thing happens, dealing with administration is really not where you want to be at.
The premium headforpoints subscription is the one that gets you 25% off BA economy redemptions (not fees though) and 15% off premium redemptions.
Okay, okay – only joking about premium subscription.
<
@BA Flyer IHG Stayer
The thing with the housekeeping money years ago was not put on a Tax Return anywhere as for many years we were both PAYE.
I also remember in the 70’s my late father coming home with a cash pay packet and splitting the monies between him and my Mum, she got the Lions share , presumably because she was lumbered with bringing up me.
That’s because ‘housekeeping’ wasn’t a salary. You used that money to buiy food etc
And my father used to do the same but again the money he paid to my mother wasn’t her salary but to pay for food and washing powder etc etc
In my unfortunate experience, life assurance pays out quite promptly on being furnished with the death certificate. Pensions also – surprisingly quick payment of “we owe you at least this and there may be more depending on [paperwork]”.
Every customer will eventually die and every nontrivial-sized organisation has a functioning process for dealing with death of a customer.
But yes, you do need accessible money for when it happens and it is an awful lot of phone calls and letters.
I think this rings a bell with me, when my Mum died some years back, she had savings in the Halifax and I went in and had an appointment with an adviser and they released 3K for the funeral expenses, even though I wasn’t on her account. I
I did have the blue passbook. I’m not sure if things have tightened up now though.
@Misty – the joint account is not about accessing money but significantly easing the administrative burden when something that is inevitable happens. And after this inevitable thing happens, dealing with administration is really not where you want to be at.
The premium headforpoints subscription is the one that gets you 25% off BA economy redemptions (not fees though) and 15% off premium redemptions.
Okay, okay – only joking about premium subscription.
<
@BA Flyer IHG Stayer
The thing with the housekeeping money years ago was not put on a Tax Return anywhere as for many years we were both PAYE.
I also remember in the 70’s my late father coming home with a cash pay packet and splitting the monies between him and my Mum, she got the Lions share , presumably because she was lumbered with bringing up me.
That’s because ‘housekeeping’ wasn’t a salary. You used that money to buiy food etc
And my father used to do the same but again the money he paid to my mother wasn’t her salary but to pay for food and washing powder etc etc
Very disappointed that there isn’t a headforpoints premium subscription, Froggee. I can see the logic in it being for ease of use at what will be a very difficult time.
@BAFlyerIHGStayer Yes I can see the distinction between salary and housekeeping allowance, I suppose I was just wondering if the OP had say 6 or 12 months statements showing money going into a bank account would that blur the lines ? I’m not advocating anything dodgy, just wondering how it would play out in this modern high tech world.
<
@BA Flyer IHG Stayer
The thing with the housekeeping money years ago was not put on a Tax Return anywhere as for many years we were both PAYE.
I also remember in the 70’s my late father coming home with a cash pay packet and splitting the monies between him and my Mum, she got the Lions share , presumably because she was lumbered with bringing up me.
That’s because ‘housekeeping’ wasn’t a salary. You used that money to buiy food etc
And my father used to do the same but again the money he paid to my mother wasn’t her salary but to pay for food and washing powder etc etc
Not necessarily. Depending on the arrangement, there was very often personal money being paid as housekeeping or wifely/ partner / mistress / secret partner support.
The money may have partially been used for household or other expenses or it might have all been given as personal allowance with expenses paid a different way.
Obviously a personal allowance would have depended on funds being available but not at all unusual.
And not everyone has to fill out a tax return and quite likely for many tbe amoounts would not have been subject to tax and N.I. either (unless it was necessary or useful to make them so).
I can’t see that it would be fraudulent, unless you were declaring the same money on 2 different applications.
Making up an income to fit the income requirements…of course it’s fraudulent!
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