American Express recently added a new anti-churning rule and from my personal experience as well as of those I know, I think I can safely say that the new rule isn’t so bad after all.
Previously the major anti-churning rule of american express was the once in a lifetime language which was formally stated in card application as
Welcome offer not available to applicants who have or have had this Card.
The old rule was short and to the point. You knew what it meant. Unfortunately the new anti-churning rule is purposely very vague.
We may also consider the number of American Express Cards you have opened and closed as well as other factors in making a decision on your welcome offer eligibility.
Fortunately, if you’re not eligible for the signup bonus for either of the reasons, the application is supposed to give you a popup notifying you of your ineligibility of offer prior to pulling your credit report. Here are two examples I copied the screenshot shared in this TPG post
because you have or had had the [card name] you are not eligible to receive the welcome offer. We have not yet performed a credit check. Would you like to proceed?
based on your history with American Express welcome offers, introductory APR offers, or number of cards you have opened or closed, you are not eligible to receive this welcome offer. We have not yet performed a credit check. Would you still like to proceed?
I thought it was interesting that other factors mentioned some in new language consists of at least your history with Amex welcome offers and introductory APR offers. I know some folks prefer one offer over another on certain American Express cards because their preferred offer has 0% introductory APR, but maybe consistently going for them isn’t a great idea anymore.
Who knows how long it will take people to pinpoint the exact detail of these other factors and their respective threshold above which one becomes ineligible for American Express offer. When one becomes ineligible for Amex offers, is there a way to get back in Amex good grace and if so how fast can one accomplish that? These are questions that are likely to be unanswered for many months. It won’t surprise me if the exact details of whatever algorithm American Express isn’t as simple as 5/24 or 1/24 that we will never be able to figure it out.
Now to finally make the point I was setting up to make – this anti-churning rule isn’t so bad and I say that based on my own personal experience as well as of some hardcore Amex signup bonus chasers I know.
I recently applied for Hilton Aspire and I did not get any popup saying I was ineligible for the offer. For the curious eyes, you can see my credit card history in these posts
Also, if you’re interested, you can read more about my thoughts on Aspire in this post I wrote several months ago. I think Aspire, in its current state, is one of the best cards released in 2018 and will definitely stay in my wallet for a long period of time.
2 comments
Since you don’t have to initiate a hard pull it means you can routinely try Amex apps until you get the bonus. It means you can constantly ping the system until you break through. As a result it means many more data points and I’d suspect we may be able to crack this a lot sooner unless it’s a very complicated sydtem
Good point Chucks. I won’t be surprised if it is a complicated system.