Wouldn’t you love to know whether you’re getting approved for a credit card before submitting the application and getting an inquiry on your credit report? That dream may be a step closer to reality with American Express‘ “Apply With Confidence” tool.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through this feature, including how it works, where you can (and can’t) see it and an evaluation of how useful it is.
What is American Express Apply With Confidence?
The Amex “Apply With Confidence” tool allows you to see whether you’ll be approved before submitting your application for an American Express card. In this way, you can fill out the application as normal, agree to the terms and then know whether you’ll be approved.
This is done through a soft pull on your credit to determine whether you’ll be accepted. If Amex says you should be approved, then you can accept the card, at which point American Express will do any necessary hard pull on your credit.
How does the Amex Apply With Confidence tool work?
This feature has limited value for those who already have an American Express card. That’s because American Express doesn’t tend to perform hard inquiries on existing customers when deciding whether to approve them for another credit card. Moreover, the tool is not aimed at these individuals.
However, if you don’t have any American Express accounts at present, this tool can be handy. Rather than submitting an application, having an inquiry appear on your credit report and then finding out you were denied, you can cancel the application before the hard pull.
Note that this feature works alongside the Amex pop-up tool, which determines your eligibility for a welcome offer. That is different from this feature determining whether you will be approved for a new account.
How to use the Apply With Confidence tool
If this feature is available during your application, you will see information about it on the first page, above the fields where you fill out your personal information to start the application. Disclosures on the page will inform you that you can know whether you’re approved without affecting your credit score and briefly outline the process for you.
After completing the application, you’ll have a chance to review your information before you submit it. At the top of this page, you’ll also see terms indicating that there is no hard pull and no impact on your credit score at this stage. That’s because Amex will only conduct a soft pull during this preliminary stage.
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Related: How your credit scores work
Who is the Amex Apply With Confidence tool for?
This tool is aimed at individuals applying for an American Express personal card for the first time, according to a spokesperson for American Express. It is available both online and when calling to inquire about cards. “We think it will be especially useful for those consumers who are unsure if they’ll qualify for a card,” they said.
Thus, this feature is unavailable if you are already logged in to your American Express account and browsing available credit cards.
Furthermore, this feature is currently only available for personal card applications, not business ones.
Bottom line
The American Express Apply With Confidence feature can let you know whether your card application should be approved before a hard pull affects your credit report and credit score. Amex also says prospective applicants will be able to access this tool through partners’ websites in the future, which would apply to cobranded credit cards from brands like Delta and Hilton.
We would love to see additional banks implement this feature to give prospective applications more certainty in deciding whether to apply for a card without potentially negatively affecting their credit score.
