What Credit Score Do You Need For An American Express Card? (2024)

American Express offers an array of credit cards to consumers with varied benefits, including travel and cash-back rewards on select cards, access to Amex Offers and other valuable protections and insurances where applicable.

With card types ranging from luxury travel cards to ones with a 0% introductory APR, there’s likely an Amex card to fit your needs. But not everyone can qualify for every type of credit card and American Express is no exception. Although there’s not an official credit score requirement listed for each card, there are some general things you should know about how an issuer uses your credit history to determine approval before you apply.

What Is a Credit Score?

Your credit score can help you get approved for attractive borrowing rates and repayment terms when you apply for most loans including mortgages, auto loans, personal loans and credit cards. Credit scores from FICO, the oldest and most widely used credit score brand, range between 300 and 850. Higher scores help banks and lenders to predict the risk of a borrower’s default on a loan or credit card.

Those with good to excellent credit scores—defined by FICO as a score of 670 and higher—represent a lower potential risk of default to a lender.

Higher credit scores can mean access to credit cards with lower interest rates as well as greater rewards and other perks. For example, a premium American Express travel card loaded with features and benefits is typically only available to those with excellent credit.

Those who are still building creditor have some missteps in their credit history are more likely to get approved for a card aimed at those who fall into the fair credit or lower range. However, in exchange for accepting lower credit scores these cards may come with fewer benefits as well as higher interest rates on any balances you carry.

How To Check Your Credit Score

Before you apply for a credit card, it makes sense to know where you stand. You can check your credit in several different ways:

• Use a free credit report site. It’s a good idea to check your report through a reputable site like AnnualCreditReport.com once per year to make sure there aren’t any errors that could have an adverse impact on your score. Note that these reports don’t give you your actual score but contain all the information that goes into calculating your score.
• Check through a current credit card. Most major credit card issuers will give you a free credit scoreas an account benefit.
• Check via a nonprofit credit counselor. If you’re looking for help overcoming debt repayment challenges impacting your credit, nonprofit credit counseling organizations, like the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC), can pull your report and score at no cost and review the results with you.

What Credit Score Do You Need For an American Express Card?

There’s no magic credit score that will guarantee you’ll be approved for a particular card. Issuers look at a variety of financial factors and your credit score is just one component of the underwriting decision process.

As a guideline, American Express’ MyCredit Guide tool uses FICO’s scoring model, which considers a credit score between 670 and 799 to be good or very good, anything below 670 to be fair or poor and anything above 800 to be excellent. While the tool evaluates your information from only one credit bureau—Experian—American Express may use more than one credit bureau or a different credit bureau to decide whether or not you qualify for one of their credit cards.

We’ve rounded up several examples of American Express credit cards that may suit your particular financial circ*mstances and credit score.

For Excellent Credit: The Platinum Card® from American Express

Geared toward borrowers with excellent credit scores, The Platinum Card® from American Express (Terms apply, see rates & fees) is a top-tier lifestyle and travel card. The vast menu of perks and benefits with this card could, if fully utilized, outweigh the hefty $695 annual fee.

Highlights of the card include:

• 5 Membership Rewards Points per dollar for flights booked directly with airlines or with American Express Travel on up to $500,000 per calendar year, 5 points per dollar on prepaid hotels booked with American Express Travel and 1 point per dollar on other eligible purchases

You can redeem Membership Rewards in multiple ways. For travel you can use your points for flights and other travel through AmexTravel.com. Points are worth one cent each when used this way for flights, but only around 0.7 cent each when you redeem for prepaid hotels, rental cars and cruises.

Membership Rewards points can also be transferred to over a dozen airline and hotel partners, many at a 1:1 transfer ratio. Among the most popular are Delta Air Lines, British Airways Avios (which can be used to fly American Airlines) and Air Canada Aeroplan (which can be used to fly United Airlines). Hotel partners include Hilton, Marriott Bonvoy and Choice.

Membership Rewards may also be redeemed for gift cards or statement credits (valued at around 0.6 cent per point) and for pay with points at checkout with select retailers (valued at 0.7 cent per point).

For Good to Excellent Credit: American Express® Gold Card

Individuals with good or excellent credit may consider applying for the American Express® Gold Card (Terms apply, seerates & fees). Although the American Express® Gold Card does not offer any airline or travel lounge benefits, the card earns impressive rewards on restaurants and U.S. supermarket spending. The American Express® Gold Card comes with an annual fee of $250 and has the following rewards structure:

• 4 Membership Rewards® points per dollar at restaurants, plus takeout and delivery in the U.S., 4 Membership Rewards® points per dollar at U.S. supermarkets (on up to $25,000 per calendar year in purchases, then 1 point per dollar), 3 Membership Rewards® points per dollar on flights booked directly with airlines or through American Express travel and 1 point per dollar on other eligible purchases

In addition to the American Express® Gold Card’s industry-leading rewards structure, it also comes with up to $120 in dining credits each year ($10 per month each month, enrollment required) toward eligible restaurants and up to $120 in Uber Cash each year ($10 per month each month) toward U.S. Uber Rides or Uber Eats after you link your eligible card to your Uber account, which if fully utilized could nearly break even with the annual fee.

For Good or Excellent Credit: American Express® Green Card*

Individuals with good or excellent credit may also want to consider the American Express® Green Card*. The American Express® Green Card* earns elevated rewards across a broad assortment of spending categories:

• 3 points per dollar on travel and transit including flights, hotels, taxis, rideshare services, trains, parking and more, 3 points per dollar on eligible purchases at restaurants worldwide including takeout and delivery in the U.S. and 1 point per dollar on other purchases

It’s worth noting that the Amex EveryDay® Credit Card* is Amex’s lowest annual fee personal card that also earns Membership Rewards points (vs. cash-back rewards). If you have good to excellent credit, but would prefer the option to carry a monthly balance without paying an annual fee, consider the no annual fee Amex EveryDay® Credit Card*, which earns Membership Rewards points or the Blue Cash Everyday® Card from American Express (Terms apply, see rates & fees) which earns cash back in the form of Reward Dollars that can be redeemed as a statement credit.

American Express Preapproval: Can You Get Preapproved for an American Express Card?

You can check American Express’ Check For Offerssite to see if you’re pre-qualified for any card offers, without any impact to your credit score. However, know that pre-qualifying is not the same as being preapproved. When you pre-qualify for an offer, it means you’re providing the issuer with some basic information about you and they perform a soft credit check to see if you’re likely, based on the information you provided, to qualify for a particular card. It’s not a guarantee of approval.

Preapproval is when an issuer contacts you to extend an offer to apply for a card. Typically, they’ll extend it based on your credit profile fitting specific criteria like a certain credit score or a solid history of on-time payments. Although a preapproval offer certainly ups the chance that you’ll get approved, it’s only after performing a hard credit inquiry and taking a detailed look at your credit profile that American Express will decide if you fit their approval criteria.

How To Improve Your Credit Score

Unlike many other issuers, American Express doesn’t offer any credit cards expressly aimed at those who are new to credit or rebuilding their credit that can be applied for directly. If you’re most interested in a top-tier American Express card, you’ll want to have the best credit score possible. Here are several steps to help you work towards your best credit score:

• Pay your bills on time every single month. Late and missed payments are the single biggest factor affecting your score.
• Lower your credit utilization. Credit utilization is measured by how much of your credit limit you use. For example, if you have a $10,000 credit limit and owe a debt of $5,000, you’re utilizing 50% of your available credit. If possible, aim for a utilization rate of 30% or less on your overall total credit outstanding, as well as on individual credit card accounts.
• Check your credit report. Check your credit reports from each of the three credit bureaus once a year for free through AnnualCreditReport.com. Reviewing your credit reports may help you to uncover any errors that might have a negative impact on your credit score so that you can take steps to correct them.
• Consider a secured credit card. If you have little to no credit or some credit missteps in your history, a secured card or one that’s designed to help build credit can be a good way to start. At this time, American Express does not offer secured credit cards or credit-builder cards directly to individuals. If you aren’t sure how secured cards work, see Forbes Advisor’s guide to secured cards.

Bottom Line

Although there’s no official score required to apply, the bulk of American Express’ cards are designed for consumers with good or better credit. Those who qualify will typically be rewarded with a card that offers rich perks and benefits. If you don’t fit the criteria for the card you’re looking for, work on improving your credit score so you’re in a better position to qualify down the line. Choosing the right card to help you with that goal is a good first step.

To view rates and fees of The Platinum Card® from American Express, please visit this page.
To view rates and fees of The Business Platinum Card® from American Express, please visit this page.
To view rates and fees of American Express® Gold Card, please visit this page.
To view rates and fees of Blue Cash Everyday® Card from American Express, please visit this page.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

All information about American Express® Green Card, Amex EveryDay® Credit Card has been collected independently by Forbes Advisor