Strategy to obtain US Amex

[QF_Flyer]

I had to wait six months and that's what Cs rep told me back in January when I mentioned I was interested in the Bonvoy business card as well. Tried to apply four months in back in May (first card approved in January) but my application was denied in an instant.

Thanks, I'll give it a while in that case, I've had my account for a month now (card is due for delivery in Australia tomorrow finally ) but not planning on anything until at least the six month mark. Would like to see if a FICO score materialises at some point too.

 

[DC3]

Did you get any upgrades in the US and Canada with your Diamond status? I heard upgrades are hard to come by in the US due to lots of people having the Hilton Aspire card.

I’ve been to the US a number of times. I always book the Hilton room type that I’ll be happy with and work on the basis that upgrades may probably not happen. Most of these trips were pre-Aspire.

During my trip last month, the upgrades were at Hilton Whistler (to a larger room type with full kitchen) Canopy at Dallas Uptown, HGI Portland, Maine, (to a great water view, upgrade from the base room) and Hilton Palacio del Rio in San Antonio (to a Riverwalk view). No upgrades at Hilton LAX, Hilton BOS, Doubletree Kamloops, HGI YYC or WA Beverly Hills (but a great stay anyway). So, all up, there were probably more upgrades this time than my average trip, for whatever reason.

As an aside, I also stayed at some non-Hiltons in the US and Canada, including the TWA Hotel JFK, just for the experience, and Fairmonts in Banff, Lake Louise and Jasper. No upgrades at any of those of course, except for an unexpected upgrade at Jasper to a full lake-view Junior Suite.

 

[Daventry]

I’ve been to the US a number of times. I always book the Hilton room type that I’ll be happy with and work on the basis that upgrades may probably not happen. Most of these trips were pre-Aspire.

During my trip last month, the upgrades were at Hilton Whistler (to a larger room type with full kitchen) Canopy at Dallas Uptown, HGI Portland, Maine, (to a great water view, upgrade from the base room) and Hilton Palacio del Rio in San Antonio (to a Riverwalk view). No upgrades at Hilton LAX, Hilton BOS, Doubletree Kamloops, HGI YYC or WA Beverly Hills (but a great stay anyway). So, all up, there were probably more upgrades this time than my average trip, for whatever reason.

As an aside, I also stayed at some non-Hiltons in the US and Canada, including the TWA Hotel JFK, just for the experience, and Fairmonts in Banff, Lake Louise and Jasper. No upgrades at any of those of course, except for an unexpected upgrade at Jasper to a full lake-view Junior Suite.

That sounds good.

What was your strategy to get the 3 Hilton cards? Did you cancel the old one after getting a new one?

 

[DC3]

That sounds good.

What was your strategy to get the 3 Hilton cards? Did you cancel the old one after getting a new one?

No cancellations as yet. The Aspire will be a keeper. One is free. The other, I’ll see. At some point I’ll look into the upgrade/downgrade/upgrade thing.

 

[Tiki]

I called in to get the new Hilton Surpass sent to Australia, after some more verification I got them to use DHL. The guy said it would arrive on 12 Aug, seems like a long time for DHL. The last Delta card took maybe 4 days-ish.

They will invalidate the original card sent to Orlando and change the last 4 digits. Will this mess up my Priority Pass membership? Do I need to update the new number with PP when I get the new card?

 

[levelnine]

What was your strategy to get the 3 Hilton cards? Did you cancel the old one after getting a new one?

You can only get an Amex sign up bonus once per lifetime (in reality, ~7 years). The optimal strategy, therefore, is to hit each of the four cards (no AF, Surpass, Aspire, Business) before considering any upgrade offers because once you upgrade to a card, you can no longer get the sign up bonus.

Also make sure you time your sign ups effectively. The no AF, Surpass and Business often come with elevated sign up bonuses where you not only get the points, but also a statement credit or waiver of the annual fee, making these cards free for the first year.

Once the initial 12 months is up, you can downgrade some and/or all the cards to the no AF (you can hold multiple versions of the same card) so you don't have to keep paying AFs if you don't want.

I will probably hold the Aspire beyond the initial 12 months as you can break even with the $250 resort credit, $250 airline credit & free night. I will downgrade all the others and see if I get any upgrade offers on any of the cards.

It is extremely profitable if you have a partner because you can refer each other for all these cards as well.

It's fairly easy to get over 1.1million Hilton points from just the sign up bonuses & referrals in a year if you have two people. That doesn't include the 34x spend at Hilton, 7x on airlines or the upgrade bonuses. Such an amazing gravy train! Imagine trying to rack up that many points without massive business spend in Australia!

 

[Daventry]

It is extremely profitable if you have a partner because you can refer each other for all these cards as well.

Do referrals work when you have to do Global Transfer?

 

[levelnine]

Do referrals work when you have to do Global Transfer?

Not entirely sure as GT was my first Amex card and so didn't have a referral, but I would assume so — as far as I can remember, all you're doing with GT is applying for a US card like anyone else while logged in to your Australian Amex account.

 

[larrymull]

Does anyone know how to get around this (see below), or am I better of waiting for the application to expire and try a global transfer.

"Upload a monthly utility statement or an active bank statement with your current address dated within the last 60 days. We are unable to accept mobile phone statements, insurance information, invoices or receipts to verify your home address."

I was sent a referral from my brother for a US Amex and completed the application using a MyUS address.

When it came to SSN I clicked on I don't have one and submitted the application.

Thoughts/ideas would be appreciated.

 

[Daventry]

Not entirely sure as GT was my first Amex card and so didn't have a referral, but I would assume so — as far as I can remember, all you're doing with GT is applying for a US card like anyone else while logged in to your Australian Amex account.

I have been given a referral for US Amex Platinum with a 150k MR bonus.

When I click on “I don’t have a SSN, let’s log in and do a global transfer” it proceeds to say that such offer is no longer available and can get only 100k MR

 

[blacksultan]

Do referrals work when you have to do Global Transfer?

I believe only if you have an itin or ssn

Post automatically merged: Aug 4, 2022

I believe only if you have an itin or ssn

Actually they do even without . It depends . Sometimes they do . Sometimes they don’t .

 

[nomad2000]

Does anyone know how to get around this (see below), or am I better of waiting for the application to expire and try a global transfer.

"Upload a monthly utility statement or an active bank statement with your current address dated within the last 60 days. We are unable to accept mobile phone statements, insurance information, invoices or receipts to verify your home address."

I was sent a referral from my brother for a US Amex and completed the application using a MyUS address.

When it came to SSN I clicked on I don't have one and submitted the application.

Thoughts/ideas would be appreciated.

Even if you do a Global Transfer, you might be hit with an address verification.
Do you have a US bank account? You should be able to do a 3-way call with your bank or just upload a bank statement to confirm your address.

Post automatically merged: Aug 4, 2022

I have been given a referral for US Amex Platinum with a 150k MR bonus.

When I click on “I don’t have a SSN, let’s log in and do a global transfer” it proceeds to say that such offer is no longer available and can get only 100k MR

I don't think you can do a referral application through a GT. You'd need to have a US AmEx account (with or without an ITIN/SSN to use a referral link)
GT uses your OZ AmEx account which doesn't work with a referral code.

 

[larrymull]

Even if you do a Global Transfer, you might be hit with an address verification.
Do you have a US bank account? You should be able to do a 3-way call with your bank or just upload a bank statement to confirm your address.

Post automatically merged: Aug 4, 2022

I don't think you can do a referral application through a GT. You'd need to have a US AmEx account (with or without an ITIN/SSN to use a referral link)
GT uses your OZ AmEx account which doesn't work with a referral code.

Yes this is a problem, and it is a steep learning curve. Enjoyable but steep. After reading for days about the strategy to undertake, what is the best US bank to open an account up from OZ? I see Bank of A given plenty of thumbs up but hard if I am not in the US, I was actually there in May, would have been good if I found this earlier.

 

[Daventry]

Even if you do a Global Transfer, you might be hit with an address verification.
Do you have a US bank account? You should be able to do a 3-way call with your bank or just upload a bank statement to confirm your address.

Post automatically merged: Aug 4, 2022

I don't think you can do a referral application through a GT. You'd need to have a US AmEx account (with or without an ITIN/SSN to use a referral link)
GT uses your OZ AmEx account which doesn't work with a referral code.

Ok so your first Amex application must be via GT

 

[DC3]

Ok so your first Amex application must be via GT

Unless you have a SSN, or maybe an ITIN. I can’t see how Amex would approve cards without a US credit score, unless applying though GT.

 

[nomad2000]

Ok so your first Amex application must be via GT

Yes, if you don't have a US credit history, that's the only way unfortunately

 

[nomad2000]

Yes this is a problem, and it is a steep learning curve. Enjoyable but steep. After reading for days about the strategy to undertake, what is the best US bank to open an account up from OZ? I see Bank of A given plenty of thumbs up but hard if I am not in the US, I was actually there in May, would have been good if I found this earlier.

If you can deposit $9k+ a month into an account (salary or otherwise) you can go down the HSBC premier path.
Open an HSBC bank account in Australia and qualify for the "Premier" status. Then you can use your status (they'll match it in most countries HSBC offers Premier accounts including US) through HSBC's international banking center in the US to open your US HSBC account remotely.
Or next time you're in the US, open up a Chase, Citi or BoA bank account.
Either way, after a month you'll have a bank statement that you can use as your proof of address for AmEx.

 

[larrymull]

If you can deposit $9k+ a month into an account (salary or otherwise) you can go down the HSBC premier path.
Open an HSBC bank account in Australia and qualify for the "Premier" status. Then you can use your status (they'll match it in most countries HSBC offers Premier accounts including US) through HSBC's international banking center in the US to open your US HSBC account remotely.
Or next time you're in the US, open up a Chase, Citi or BoA bank account.
Either way, after a month you'll have a bank statement that you can use as your proof of address for AmEx.

Not really worth it is it, cheaper to jump on a bird and open an account face to face.

 

[Daventry]

Unless you have a SSN, or maybe an ITIN. I can’t see how Amex would approve cards without a US credit score, unless applying though GT.

I have an ITIN but I suspect it'll be easier to go through GT as I don't have any other US cards.

Those of you who got an ITIN later on, how did you link it to your account? Can it be done online or did you have to call Amex?

 

[nomad2000]

Not really worth it is it, cheaper to jump on a bird and open an account face to face.

well you don’t need to keep any money in your account, as long as you make that deposit you’ll qualify and keep your premier status
You can withdraw the money right after the deposit