By Julian, author of Devil’s Advocate…
One of the things I love about writing both this series and my Devil’s Advocate column over at Travel Codex is how often people are willing to selflessly contribute ideas and tips to share with the community. It’s great to have such resources since I can’t possibly know about everything that exists out there.
For instance, yesterday saw the release of the new “Star Wars” trailer. I don’t get too worked up about “Star Wars” but there are people who obsess over every last detail. Which is good, because then I have someone to turn to when I wonder how the lightsaber that Anakin Skywalker had first, but which Obi Wan then gave to Luke, except Luke lost it when Darth Vader cut off his hand during their fight in “Empire Strikes Back” but now here is clearly the same lightsaber being given to someone else in the new trailer, so how the heck did Luke get it back, huh??? Someone tell me that!
Where was I? Oh, yes. Today’s “Bet You Didn’t Know” tip is a great example of contributions to the community, as it was generously shared with me for this post by none other than the Doctor of Credit himself, William Charles. Doctor of Credit is a blog with terrific coverage of credit card and checking account deals and is on my personal must read list every day (along with Frequent Miler and Travel Codex, of course). You’ll definitely want to check it out and add it to your blogroll if you haven’t already.
An Amex credit pull surprise.
Through his research, William has discovered some interesting and potentially useful info about how Amex pulls credit reports when you apply for an American Express card. Specifically, if you are already an American Express cardholder (which I’m guessing applies to most folks here) and apply for another Amex card, Amex first uses whatever soft pull info they already have on file internally for you to determine if you qualify. Only after they’ve determined that you’re approved for a new card do they pull your actual credit profile to confirm that there haven’t been any major changes.
So what does this mean for our purposes? Simple. If you’re an existing Amex cardholder and get rejected for an additional Amex card, there is no hard pull for the application on your credit report.
That knowledge makes the calculation for applying for American Express cards a lot easier. If you know you won’t be wasting a hard pull on a possible Amex denial, you can be a lot more aggressive about going after Amex signup offers. Since Amex tends to use Experian like many other banks, it also means you won’t have any useless Amex hard pulls cluttering your most used credit report.
Remember that Amex currently only allows one bonus per personal product per lifetime, so while you can be aggressive about multiple products, you don’t want to use up that one-time bonus on a lesser offer. Wait for the better offers to come along before you pull the trigger. If you’re applying for Amex business cards, you can still get multiple bonuses (FM edit: make sure to wait at least 12 months after cancelling the previous card!), so in that case you can signup for cards based on the application terms and conditions.
Again, this only applies if you’re already an Amex cardholder. New Amex customers will get a hard pull regardless of whether their application is approved or denied.
(UPDATE: As of 6/12/2015, Will at Doctor of Credit has done further research and has discovered that Barclaycard has a similar policy on soft pulls when denying a current Barclaycard customer. You can check out his updated list of issuers that offer this feature here).
Offersbot shutdown and update.
As first noted by Doctor of Credit as well, Offersbot has been permanently suspended by Twitter. If you’ll recall, I wrote about Offersbot when it first appeared on the scene as an awesome utility to automate Amex Sync offers (see “Bet You Didn’t Know: Never miss an Amex Sync deal with Offersbot“).
After reading about the suspension, I reached out to Kevin Rose, one of the co-creators of Offersbot to ask about their status. Kevin reports that Twitter has been somewhat aloof in communicating with them regarding their decision to terminate Offersbot’s API access, but they’re reviewing the situation and their options and hope to do something more with Offersbot. He promises he’ll keep us informed when they’ve decided on their future plans.
In the meantime, there are still options for automated (or partially automated) syncing of Amex Offers. Seth at Wandering Aramean continues to offer SyncAssist as part of his suite of Travel Tools, and he’s made some significant improvements since the last time I wrote about this subject. SyncAssist is free for one Amex/Twitter sync account, but you can join Seth’s First Class program for just $15 per year and get SyncAssist on unlimited accounts (not to mention extra benefits on several of his other tools). If SyncAssist gets you just one extra $15 sync offer it’ll pay for itself, so I’d consider it money well spent.
The other option is to use TweetDeck to create a semi-automated sync bot. Greg the Frequent Miler has written about this in the past, so you can check out his post to learn the details (see “Create an Amex Sync Machine“). The one problem with this method is it still requires you to manually create a Tweet for each Amex offer, which means you might not get to an offer before it reaches the maximum number of enrollees. Especially if you’re like me and you’ve slept in super late because you spent all night explaining to those other internet dolts that Han and Chewie are obviously coming home to the Millennium Falcon itself! I mean, where else would be home for them?! Come on, people! Look at the background! It’s the Falcon! Home is the Falcon!
It occurs to me the biggest issue with fully automated methods is the chance that Twitter will object in some way down the line. I’m thinking if someone was industrious and created an RSS feed with Amex Sync Offer info, we could use the techniques we learned a few weeks ago while chasing mistake fares to create an IFTTT recipe and use that info to tweet Amex Offers ourselves, thereby eliminating any chance that Twitter would get distressed by a large number of automated Tweets from one API account.
Of course, there’s also the possibility that IFTTT would shut that down, but I imagine there might be ways to daisy chain things so that it wouldn’t become an issue. For instance, IFTTT could be set up to send a text or notification when a new Sync offer appeared, and then the user could create another IFTTT recipe to have the option to Tweet only selected offers so that they weren’t signing up for every single offer.
Any Frequent Miler readers want to take on this challenge? I would, but I’m too angry about the apparent lack of Lobot. How can they do a “Star Wars” movie without Lobot? Lobot is Star Wars! Helloooooooooo, J.J. Abrams?! Jeez, am I the only sane one here???
A giveaway of United Club passes!
If you didn’t happen to see my Devil’s Advocate column yesterday, I’m celebrating my 1-year anniversary by giving away a pair of United Club day passes. All you have to do to enter is follow me on Twitter @dvlsadvcate and you’ll have a chance to win. If you’re already following me on Twitter, you’re already entered as I’ll choose a winner next Wednesday, April 22nd at 5pm Eastern from my entire list of followers. So make sure you’re following me before then.
Also, as I noted at Travel Codex yesterday, I’ve had a few new writing projects piled onto my plate in the last few weeks, so for the next couple of months I’ll be moving to an every other week schedule for “Bet You Didn’t Know” as well as “Devil’s Advocate.” Or to put it in loyalty program terminology, there’s an upcoming “enhancement” of my writing work that will allow me to better serve our readers and give them the quality and benefits they’ve come to expect and appreciate. Wow, that does sound better, doesn’t it?
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to finish my manifesto on how Greedo clearly shot first. As if it wasn’t obvious…

Other Recent Posts From The “Bet You Didn’t Know” Series:
Manipulating the Citi ThankYou Flight Search Engine
The (only) two useful features of Google Hotels
Mistake Fares Exclusively For Your City or Airline
Find all the “Bet You Didn’t Know” posts here.

Thanks for sharing
[…] existing Amex cardholders: If you already have a credit card issued by American Express, the bank will not initially hard pull your credit report upon subsequent applications. They only pull your credit report if you are conditionally approved from internal information […]
Hey great post. I hope it’s alright that I shared it on my Facebook,
if not, no issues just let me know and I’ll remove it.
Either way keep up the good work.
[…] if you already have a credit card issued by American Express, the bank will not initially hard pull your credit report upon subsequent applications. They only pull your credit report if you are conditionally approved from internal information […]
[…] a 2015 Frequent Miler post making the same point, and Doctor of Credit suggests that Barclaycard does the same […]
[…] was reported by FrequentMiler in 2015, though is something I wasn’t aware of. Apparently if you are an existing American Express […]
Good day I am so excited I found your website, I really found you by mistake, while I was researching on Yahoo for something else,
Regardless I am here now and would just like to say kudos for
a marvelous post and a all round exciting blog
(I also love the theme/design), I don’t have time to read through it all at the
minute but I have saved it and also added your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read much more, Please do keep up the fantastic
work.
Quality content is the main to attract the people to go to see
the site, that’s what this site is providing.
I savour, lead to I found exactly what I was taking a look for.
You have ended my four day long hunt! God Bless you man. Have a great day.
Bye
I’m gone to inform my little brother, that he should also visit this web site on regular basis to take updated from most recent gossip.
What’s up to every one, as I am in fact keen of reading this blog’s post to be updated on a regular basis.
It carries nice stuff.
[…] Offersbot was shut down by Twitter several months ago, I wrote a pair of posts to describe several methods of creating your own Amex […]
Al principio hacía el pan directamente sobre el Silpat® y para eludir que se desparramara”
me las arreglaba poniendo un par de rodillos a los lados
hasta el momento en que tomara un poco de forma.
Howdy would you mind letting me know which hosting company you’re using?
I’ve loaded your blog in 3 completely different browsers and I must say this blog
loads a lot faster then most. Can you suggest a good hosting provider at a
honest price? Thanks a lot, I appreciate it!
Excellent blog you have got here.. It’s hard to find high quality writing like yours nowadays.
I truly appreciate individuals like you! Take care!!
hi!,I love your writing so much! proportion we keep in touch extra about
your post on AOL? I need a specialist in this house to resolve my problem.
Maybe that is you! Having a look forward to peer you.
Generally I don’t read article on blogs, but I would like to say that
this write-up very forced me to check out and do it!
Your writing taste has been amazed me. Thanks, very great article.
The fact is that nowadays there are hundreds if not thousands of different types of dog supplements and treats that you can buy today.
Not only does it help to increase size and strength, it also contributes
tremendously to increasing lean muscle mass and gain. Do a simple search on Google or Amazon for a keyword like “dog supplements” and instantly you will
get hundreds of thousands of results.
Every sports person whether he is a man or women needs sports supplements
in order to avail best results. Almost all bodies anticipate
that bodybuilding supplements is an above allotment of the blueprint
back it comes to accretion beef mass. What’s more, the global supplement market is worth
close to $70 billion according to research from Euromonitor.
Brain O Brain capsules tackle stress and produce high level of energy, the herbs used in the preparation of these capsules contain iron in high amount which enhances the capacity oxygen carrying of the blood by increasing the number of red blood cells.
Almost all bodies anticipate that bodybuilding supplements is an above allotment of the blueprint back it comes to accretion beef
mass. As after the tiring workouts session the body of bodybuilder is malnourished then the requirements of post workout supplements increases.
Every sports person whether he is a man or women needs sports
supplements in order to avail best results. You can even check out the customer reviews,
and start availing more information, about those products.
As after the tiring workouts session the body of bodybuilder is malnourished
then the requirements of post workout supplements increases.
The entire effect of these rugs to a room should be considered when purchasing one.
Reed beds present sludge dewatering by plant consumption,
evapotranspiration, and drainage. Tiny video cameras are sometimes used to probe intricate pipes to pinpoint hidden leaks
and problems.
The entire effect of these rugs to a room should be considered when purchasing one.
It is necessary to wisely choose carpets to be placed in a room
so that they can add color, style and warmth. While both parents were charged, one of
the charges that the boy’s mother is facing is more serious than what the boy’s father is facing, according to WUSA-9 on April 3.
This post is genuinely a good one it helps new the web visitors, who
are wishing for blogging.
Is it just me that is seeing some logic issue with this method? If they already decided to approve the new card based on soft pull, do they really have to do the hard pull? If they are looking for some significant change in the credit report after the hard pull, does it still mean some one, even though might be rare, can still get rejected?
[…] A shared secret about Amex credit pulls, plus an Offersbot update […]
[…] you read Frequent Miler’s blog, you’ll probably already be aware of this as I shared this with Julian in the past for a Bet […]
Как не в такой мере платить по кредиту?
Приключаются ситуации в
жизни, когда по неожиданным причинам
ухудшается материальное
состояние. В результате, где там выплачивать установлению необходимую сумму по кредиту.
в таком случае, превосходнее самому отправится в банк, чем ждать,
покуда дьявол никак не подаст иеремиаду в суд.
Есть несколько разновидностей для того, чтоб убавить
выплаты по кредиту.
1. Реструктурирование
Кредитор соглашаться на уступки, по просьбе заемщика.
Можно шмальнуть о том, чтоб
увеличить срок кредита возьми продолжительное время, в
итоге чего же, понизится каждомесячный платеж.
Таковой вариант идеальный в том случае, допустим банк никак не поменяет %-ую ставку в протяжении всего момент кредита.
Еще, можно шмальнуть о пластиковых каникулах.
Это вероятность не оплачивать авторитет пару месяцев.
Часто при лизинге используют такую схему.
Можно условиться лишь об пластиковых процентах, или собрать личный график выплат.
Еще один вид реструктуризации – наверное совершенное или выборочное погашения кредита самим банком.
Таковой вариант используют в очень
редчайших вариантах. Почаще спишут только
штрафные доля из-за прострочку оплаты.
2. Рефинансирование (перекредитование)
Это возможность брать новейший кредит в
собственном или в другом банке для закрытия старого кредита, на более прибыльных критериях.
Поначалу необходимо устремиться в свой банк об этом предписании, но не любой банк желает проводить рефинансирование
личных кредитов. Дальше, надлежит найти пригодный банк с наилучшими
условиями. На данный момент
очень активная конкурентнсть среди банковских органов.
Просто можно найти кредитора,
кой даст согласие возьми эту операцию, главное,
чтоб имелась хорошая пластиковая
история. Погасив старенькый кредит, заемщик обязан выплачивать
новейший, но уже с меньшими
процентами.
@julian/other folks – quick Q about the AMEX app surprise. if the computer auto-denies you due to a recent OBC axing (on the day I app’d no less,) the app decision email which came a cpl hrs after the closure email only says “we cant approve another account due to recent closure.” I’m guessing AMEX only checked their internal file on me + maybe a soft pull to deny the app.
so my credit worthiness was not an issue (I recently just got approved for a Biz Plat & Biz Gold)… if I were to goto recon, which requires (another) HP, will that go thru even if a human manually declines the app? or is this trick only applicable to computer decisions.
the reps I spoke w/about OBC closure said it wasnt a “negative closure” and shouldnt affect my current or future relationship with AMEX. so I’m guessing the computer only made a binary decision on my app (acct closed by us recently so customer is ‘bad’ thus no new acct) … any idea when this goes away? I certainly dont mind going to recon but would hate to waste an HP if they cant manually do anything because of the underlying situation re: OBC.
[…] I applied for the ThankYou. Why? Because existing Amex cardholders probably won’t get a hard pull on their credit if they get denied. Rather have a cleaner report for Citi and not worry as much about the Amex […]
[…] A shared secret about Amex credit pulls, plus an Offersbot update […]
That explains why I had to call in 3 times on a card application when I changed my name if they aren’t pulling new info!
Lightsabers color are based on the crystal color that it was created upon. So, there are many green, blue, or red lightsabers ‘around’.
[…] Bet You Didn’t Know: A shared secret about Amex credit pulls, plus an Offersbot update – How Amex treats credit pulls for existing customers looking for a new card and the latest developments with the Offersbot shutdown. […]
The importance of credit inquiries is grossly exaggerated. If you have strong income and great credit you will consistently be approved by almost every prime issuer no matter how many inquires you have.
I just got a card with Citi with 11 inquiries showing on Equifax. I have 29 on TransUnion and the approvals keep rolling in.
When you are declined for a new account, there are generally multiple reasons and the denial letter cannot possibly list every reason. If one of those reasons is “too many inquiries,” it’s almost always something else.
Grandpa Han’s already moved on to his next redux paycheck – already doing a sequel to Bladerunner 30 something years after the fact. Great – now we can look forward to Air Force One – Two in 2030. But I digress…
I seem to remember reading one of the others (Barclays?) also does no hard pull on decline with an existing credit relationship – hmm, sounds like a new Doctor of Credit post may be in order…and, as William will tell you, in case of an erroneous pull, “Lenders remove hard pulls all the time…”
Is the Amex personal card once per lifetime policy retroactive? For example, if I got a personal card in the past and then closed the card, can I get it one more time in the future?
Has anyone been able to get the signup on another Amex personal card while being an existing customer? I thought this was not possible…anyone have experience doing it in recent months?
Family has His/Her SPG Amex, Old Blue Cash, Amex Hilton, His/Her Amex Preferred, Business SPG, Mercedes Platinum and 3 Redbirds………so no outright duplicates just one of everything else………Had started looking at which ones to close and then Offer from Smart & Final came along and totally convinces me the only limitation to not making more money in life is to have fewer AMEX cards
How often do they update what they have ‘on file internally’?
I believe monthly and then whenever there is a significant change in your credit (e.g late payment, new application etc).
Dude, you got it wrong. The important part of your column was the Star Wars stuff. New trailer rocks!
I’d love to expand the IFTTT buffet table……..especially the award side of the house…..also see Sync potential with Amex……..