Declined for Amex Blue with a 760 Score!

[Moira D]

Amex Blue declined my application with a 760 Experian score.

I applied for an Amex Blue card today and was declined for the following reasons:

High utilization of credit lines or insufficient utilization information. The amount of spending on bank and retail credit card accounts over the last twelve months is too low.Your application indicated you rent your home. Too few established accounts or insufficient account information (Experian). My Experian credit score is 760. I have had 2 store credit cards since 1990 - (one I used several times this year).

My credit cards are paid off and I have an additional 3 open accounts (one installment and 2 lines of credit). I am using 18% of my available credit (which
Experian tells me is lowering my score). I have recently closed my Visa account that I had for over 5 years because of the yearly fee and high interest rate, but would like a card in case of emergencies. I have never been late on payments. Will it hurt my credit to apply for a Visa at this point?

[Mrs. T]

it shouldnt hurt your score. you've got a great score. amex likes people who spend lots of money. and your report says you dont use your credit cards much so how are they gonna make money off your interest? and it also looks weird when you close an account. i know it sounds dumb but i believe closing it actually lowers your score. your age also has to do w/it. if your younger or in college those 'fancier' credit card companies dont give credit to young people unless you make tons of $$$ and/or get a card w/1 of ur parents

[mkat33]

It seems odd that Experian said that using 18% of your available credit is lowering your credit score. At 760, your credit score isn't the problem. Here are some things that may be happening:

1. Amex doesn't want to open an account that will be used sparingly because that takes away from the amount of capital they have available to open other accounts that will contribute more heavily to the company's revenues and profitability.

2. If you rent and your account falls into arrears, you have no real property onto which Amex can attach a lien.

3. You may have a high amount of available credit so Amex was basing it's decision on your ability to make payments if you maxed out all of your available credit.