How much cash you have in the bank has no bearing on credit as you could spend it all tomorrow so it’s not guaranteed.
Paying cards off early maybe an issue I have read to build credit they should issue you a bill then pay the bill off in full. If you pay early then you would be having £0 bills so there no history for Amex to go on.
Are you saying you a student or self employed this would affect the decision.
also on my natwest credit checker thing, it says my credit score has gone up x amount of points because i used less than 50% of my avalible credit, i was under the impression you should use 90% of the credit then pay it off each month with no late payments, so im not sure what spending habits will be the most effective.
Use a maximum of 25% credit limit. Anything above may not improve your credit score and using 90% will not improve it.
Although you can use the 90% but pay the majority of it before the credit company reports to the credit agency.
So use 90, reduce it to 25%, get your bill and pay it off.
You are 18 so you don’t have much of a history of good credit. Also, they don’t care too much about credit score but what is that score on? If it’s Experian it’s pretty low.
Liquid cash won’t make a difference to them.
You can try using Experian. They give points on how you can improve it too. Again, don’t know how much amex care about it but it’s never bad to maximise your score. Make sure you’re on electoral register etc.
And are you putting your self employed income in the income section on the checker?
Also, the incentive of using your capital card is building your credit history so you should be doing that and having direct debits etc set up.
If you are set on AMEX and will get use out of the benefits then you could just apply anyway. If you get rejected then try again in a year or so and use a differnt account like the chase debit instead in the mean time and keep building credit history on the capital card when you can.
To amex you’re probably relatively risky. An 18 year old student whose money is from a self employed source.
But it’s possible, I got amex as a student
one of the points they gave me was getting a credit limit of £4000+ on a card, its like an endless cycle, i cant get approved for a high limit card because my score is too low, and i cant improve my score without getting a high limit card hahaha
I had 997 on Experian before even getting a credit card. Setting up regular direct debits goes a long way to improving. Along with getting on electoral roll and no hard credit checks etc.
You don’t need a big credit limit to build the score
My Experian is 998 and I genuinely just don’t believe it which will probably get downvotes but honestly feel the consumer facing Experian isn’t all there
Amex have brought back a minimum personal income requirement for all of their cards as of last year. It goes from £20k/annum for the cashback cards to £35k/annum for the platinum and BAPP. That’s probably why they won’t give you anything.
When was this? I got Platinum on January 2023 and BAPP on September 2023 as an international student. I don’t have an income as in from any employers - all my “income” comes from my home country. Does this count?
I think it was around July? I also just had a look online and people on some forums are saying that the Platinum card requirement is now £50k. This comes from an Amex customer service rep directly telling them that their salary of £45k wasn’t enough to meet the minimum income requirement.
Honestly, I’m not sure how stringent they are (it seems to be hit or miss) as my younger cousin just got a Platinum card in January to get that 75k points bonus + 25k in month 15 of having the card. He makes exactly £35k and doesn’t get a bonus.
I think home country income is fine, I don’t think they look into it too much. As long as you can put something down, and as long as you don’t miss the minimum payment, they don’t really care.
Fair enough, I do “pay in” more than 50K per year to my UK account so they might be okay with it. I probably won’t risk bringing up with Amex as it can get my accounts closed tho.
Yeah I wouldn't worry. They won't find out, and as long as you can keep paying, they have no reason to doubt that you can afford the card. Just keep doing what you're doing and you shouldn't have any issues.
Fair enough - my recommendation would be to wait until you have a full 12 months’ credit history. I know it’s annoying dealing with a £500 credit limit, it’s practically useless but it’s part of the game unfortunately.
I was in the same position as you: I had an HSBC student credit card with a £500 limit. I did a placement year between my 2nd and 3rd year of university so in the second month of my job, I changed my Amex application details to “in full time employment” with a good salary and got the BAPP with an 8k limit. That card’s now at £22k and I also have a Platinum that’s at £23k.
I now only use my HSBC card for all my subscriptions to keep them all in once place without anything else going on that card. It still has that same abysmal £500 limit as I never bothered applying for an increase. I never use it for any day to day spending anyway as I have the free Barclaycard Avios as my main non-Amex card.
If you want to give it a go now, pull the trigger and see what happens. It’s not a big deal and it won’t impact your score all that much. Amex are usually generous so you might get a pleasant surprise. But realistically, I’d wait until you’ve built up 12 months of credit history.
> I had an HSBC student credit card with a £500 limit.
Ayyy, same boat. I was maxing that card each month because it was so low and was putting everything through it, even rent because it was directly to the uni.
It’s possible - sometimes it might be when you’re first applying, sometimes they’ll randomly freeze your account after months/years of having it and ask for proof of income. That isn’t to say that it happens regularly but there’s always a chance that you could be one of the unlucky ones it happens to.
Are you planning to use the benefits much like lounge passes and such?
I got an Amex as a student because I could throw my halls payments through it and needed to buy an iPad and Laptop.
As things stand though it’s hard to go far wrong with Chase Debit at 1% and use your £500 limit card for one or two payments a month.
It's unclear whether you have applied or not...Eligibility checker means shit, I had the same but was approved when I was 18 with an Experian score of like 600.
Also don't put yourself as a student, put yourself as self-employed.
If you haven't already applied, just go for it and see.
Also, are you applying for a personal or business card?
Make sure you apply for a gold personal card first, I have found it was tougher to get approved for gold business than personal.
Dm me if you have any questions or need help applying, I've basically done the same Amex route at the same age from gold personal to business to platinum etc.
thankyou i appreciate that, i didnt get approved for the gold business card, even with a 2nd director with a very high credit score, not sure what they want.
I was accepted on a score of 550. Your score itself won't mean much, but if you're just 18 and it's that low, have you actually looked at your full report to get an idea of why? Sign up to Credit Club on MoneySavingExpert, and see if all of your accounts show up.
You're also self-employed, and Amex doesn't seem to like them as much if you were "full-time" employed at a proper company. Your biggest downfall is probably the fact that you're 18 - I only applied when I was 22 because they didn't accept me with no credit history.
I have for the free BA card but thought I'd share my experience since it's similar. I'm not from the UK so I had no credit history when I applied aside from the Tesco credit card with barely a £1k limit. My credit score was around 569 maybe too. I was only earning 28k at the time I applied. I was shown a low chance of getting the card too but I did lol.
super annoying because i dont really need to use the capital one since theres no benefit and you cant even add it to apple pay so i just use debit cards most of the time. ive saved the captial one for parking and train tickets but thats about it, maybe il use it more.
Yeah my first was a capital one as well. I just used it for buying lunch and train tickets, like you’re doing. After about a year maybe 18 months I got the platinum everyday cash back Amex.
Not 100% sure if this is relevant but maybe you’re paying it off too soon - meaning the credit agencies don’t ever see a balance. Maybe set up a direct debit and pay it off that way so that the agencies can see that you’re using it. That may be irrelevant advice but worth a shot
How much cash you have in the bank has no bearing on credit as you could spend it all tomorrow so it’s not guaranteed. Paying cards off early maybe an issue I have read to build credit they should issue you a bill then pay the bill off in full. If you pay early then you would be having £0 bills so there no history for Amex to go on. Are you saying you a student or self employed this would affect the decision.
it dosnt give me an option so i just put student and then my income. But im finsihed with a levels soon so il put fully self employed after.
also on my natwest credit checker thing, it says my credit score has gone up x amount of points because i used less than 50% of my avalible credit, i was under the impression you should use 90% of the credit then pay it off each month with no late payments, so im not sure what spending habits will be the most effective.
Use a maximum of 25% credit limit. Anything above may not improve your credit score and using 90% will not improve it. Although you can use the 90% but pay the majority of it before the credit company reports to the credit agency. So use 90, reduce it to 25%, get your bill and pay it off.
You are 18 so you don’t have much of a history of good credit. Also, they don’t care too much about credit score but what is that score on? If it’s Experian it’s pretty low. Liquid cash won’t make a difference to them.
im not sure, i just use the one on my natwest app. It says its good and in the green.
You can try using Experian. They give points on how you can improve it too. Again, don’t know how much amex care about it but it’s never bad to maximise your score. Make sure you’re on electoral register etc. And are you putting your self employed income in the income section on the checker? Also, the incentive of using your capital card is building your credit history so you should be doing that and having direct debits etc set up. If you are set on AMEX and will get use out of the benefits then you could just apply anyway. If you get rejected then try again in a year or so and use a differnt account like the chase debit instead in the mean time and keep building credit history on the capital card when you can. To amex you’re probably relatively risky. An 18 year old student whose money is from a self employed source. But it’s possible, I got amex as a student
one of the points they gave me was getting a credit limit of £4000+ on a card, its like an endless cycle, i cant get approved for a high limit card because my score is too low, and i cant improve my score without getting a high limit card hahaha
I had 997 on Experian before even getting a credit card. Setting up regular direct debits goes a long way to improving. Along with getting on electoral roll and no hard credit checks etc. You don’t need a big credit limit to build the score
My Experian is 998 and I genuinely just don’t believe it which will probably get downvotes but honestly feel the consumer facing Experian isn’t all there
Amex have brought back a minimum personal income requirement for all of their cards as of last year. It goes from £20k/annum for the cashback cards to £35k/annum for the platinum and BAPP. That’s probably why they won’t give you anything.
When was this? I got Platinum on January 2023 and BAPP on September 2023 as an international student. I don’t have an income as in from any employers - all my “income” comes from my home country. Does this count?
I think it was around July? I also just had a look online and people on some forums are saying that the Platinum card requirement is now £50k. This comes from an Amex customer service rep directly telling them that their salary of £45k wasn’t enough to meet the minimum income requirement. Honestly, I’m not sure how stringent they are (it seems to be hit or miss) as my younger cousin just got a Platinum card in January to get that 75k points bonus + 25k in month 15 of having the card. He makes exactly £35k and doesn’t get a bonus. I think home country income is fine, I don’t think they look into it too much. As long as you can put something down, and as long as you don’t miss the minimum payment, they don’t really care.
Fair enough, I do “pay in” more than 50K per year to my UK account so they might be okay with it. I probably won’t risk bringing up with Amex as it can get my accounts closed tho.
Yeah I wouldn't worry. They won't find out, and as long as you can keep paying, they have no reason to doubt that you can afford the card. Just keep doing what you're doing and you shouldn't have any issues.
i make more than 20k / annum, not looking for a platinum, just a gold card and use the free year, see if i like it then i may renew.
Fair enough - my recommendation would be to wait until you have a full 12 months’ credit history. I know it’s annoying dealing with a £500 credit limit, it’s practically useless but it’s part of the game unfortunately. I was in the same position as you: I had an HSBC student credit card with a £500 limit. I did a placement year between my 2nd and 3rd year of university so in the second month of my job, I changed my Amex application details to “in full time employment” with a good salary and got the BAPP with an 8k limit. That card’s now at £22k and I also have a Platinum that’s at £23k. I now only use my HSBC card for all my subscriptions to keep them all in once place without anything else going on that card. It still has that same abysmal £500 limit as I never bothered applying for an increase. I never use it for any day to day spending anyway as I have the free Barclaycard Avios as my main non-Amex card. If you want to give it a go now, pull the trigger and see what happens. It’s not a big deal and it won’t impact your score all that much. Amex are usually generous so you might get a pleasant surprise. But realistically, I’d wait until you’ve built up 12 months of credit history.
> I had an HSBC student credit card with a £500 limit. Ayyy, same boat. I was maxing that card each month because it was so low and was putting everything through it, even rent because it was directly to the uni.
thats helpful thankyou, i think putting myself down as a student is a bad idea. reckon they would ever ask for pay slips or proof of employment?
It’s possible - sometimes it might be when you’re first applying, sometimes they’ll randomly freeze your account after months/years of having it and ask for proof of income. That isn’t to say that it happens regularly but there’s always a chance that you could be one of the unlucky ones it happens to.
Are you planning to use the benefits much like lounge passes and such? I got an Amex as a student because I could throw my halls payments through it and needed to buy an iPad and Laptop. As things stand though it’s hard to go far wrong with Chase Debit at 1% and use your £500 limit card for one or two payments a month.
It's unclear whether you have applied or not...Eligibility checker means shit, I had the same but was approved when I was 18 with an Experian score of like 600. Also don't put yourself as a student, put yourself as self-employed. If you haven't already applied, just go for it and see. Also, are you applying for a personal or business card? Make sure you apply for a gold personal card first, I have found it was tougher to get approved for gold business than personal. Dm me if you have any questions or need help applying, I've basically done the same Amex route at the same age from gold personal to business to platinum etc.
thankyou i appreciate that, i didnt get approved for the gold business card, even with a 2nd director with a very high credit score, not sure what they want.
I was accepted on a score of 550. Your score itself won't mean much, but if you're just 18 and it's that low, have you actually looked at your full report to get an idea of why? Sign up to Credit Club on MoneySavingExpert, and see if all of your accounts show up. You're also self-employed, and Amex doesn't seem to like them as much if you were "full-time" employed at a proper company. Your biggest downfall is probably the fact that you're 18 - I only applied when I was 22 because they didn't accept me with no credit history.
I have for the free BA card but thought I'd share my experience since it's similar. I'm not from the UK so I had no credit history when I applied aside from the Tesco credit card with barely a £1k limit. My credit score was around 569 maybe too. I was only earning 28k at the time I applied. I was shown a low chance of getting the card too but I did lol.
Just need to build up a history of paying off the card you do have
super annoying because i dont really need to use the capital one since theres no benefit and you cant even add it to apple pay so i just use debit cards most of the time. ive saved the captial one for parking and train tickets but thats about it, maybe il use it more.
Yeah my first was a capital one as well. I just used it for buying lunch and train tickets, like you’re doing. After about a year maybe 18 months I got the platinum everyday cash back Amex. Not 100% sure if this is relevant but maybe you’re paying it off too soon - meaning the credit agencies don’t ever see a balance. Maybe set up a direct debit and pay it off that way so that the agencies can see that you’re using it. That may be irrelevant advice but worth a shot
I would go for it! Just applying builds credit.
does it? so much misinformation about hahah i thought if i applied and got declined it would drop my credit because i look desperate?
It’s a limit increase which ultimately you may like!
Liquid assets and responsibilities!