My 30,000 Point Starwood Amex Personal and Business Double Application Update
Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.
Last Tuesday I applied for both the personal and business versions of the Starwood American Express card since they are running 30,000 point sign-up promotions on both cards, which is 20% more than what they usually offer. I immediately got approved for the personal card, though my business application (which I had submitted second) was automatically flagged as a duplicate application and put into a 4-day holding queue. I was told there was nothing they could do to expedite and to call after about a week if I hadn't heard anything further.
Well the good news is that 6 days later I got an approval email from American Express letting me know that the card was on its way. This is great because I don't really like calling credit card companies, which is what I have to do more and more these days since I have an impressive lineup of current cards and sometimes they need a little nudging to approve me for new cards (some of which I'll be canceling soon, so stay tuned!).
Anyway, the bad news is that Amex pulled my credit again when processing the business application. In Florida American Express and Chase use Experian, so I paid $14.95 for access to my report and score for the month so I could monitor and track if I actually got two inquiries (you can get a free annual credit report here).
Sadly two inquiries showed up on my report, though it's not really the end of the world- clearly American Express wasn't concerned that I had gotten another Amex, Chase and Citi card just 6 days prior. Still, it's roughly a 2 point temporary ding on my credit that I'd rather not have, but considering I'm getting 30,000 Starpoints that I conservatively value at $600 and 5 nights towards elite status- and the annual fee waived for the first year I feel like I'm coming out on top.
So there you have it- unlike Citi and Chase, Amex does pull your credit twice when applying for both a personal and business card. Please comment if your experience has been different.
[card card-name='The Platinum Card® from American Express' card-id='22504813' type='javascript' bullet-id='1']
