Amtrak Guest Rewards - Credit Rating Needed for AGR World Mastercard?

Hello Flyertalk,

I'm thinking of getting the AGR World Mastercard. I use Amtrak about 6 or 8 times a year to visit home, and received an offer via email for the 36,000 points deal. The offer looks good, but I'm concerned that it may be targeted towards people with better credit ratings. I wouldn't want a credit card application rejection to damage my credit score.

Does anyone know if the AGR World Mastercard requires a significant credit score? Do Chase or AGR do a soft pull of your credit rating to prequalify you before they email you the offer?

My credit rating should be fine, but it's only about 1.5 years old (I got my first credit card in September 2008). Since then I've been paying it off in full every month.

Any information would be much appreciated! There are some old threads about this, but none more recent than 2008.

I wouldn't want a credit card application rejection to damage my credit score.Welcome to FlyerTalk!

If a creditor rejects your application, I don't believe that information gets reported to a credit bureau.

Wirelessly posted (SAMSUNG-SGH-I617/1.0 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 7.6))

I wouldn't want a credit card application rejection to damage my credit score.Welcome to FlyerTalk!

If a creditor rejects your application, I don't believe that information gets reported to a credit bureau.

The fact that they hard-pull the report when you apply does, however (and mildly and temporarily dings one score).
The OP's worry about rejection is not whether the rejection would appear on the report (it doesn't), but that either approve or reject would cause a hard-pull to appear (and thus ding either way), and if the result is reject, he'd have nothing (a shiny new AGR MC) to show for it.

The OP's worry about rejection is not whether the rejection would appear on the report (it doesn't)...Uhhh... the OP was clearly said he/she was worried how a rejection would affect his/her credit score.

Otherwise, I don't disagree with anything else you've posted.

My mistake, I misinterpreted some literature I found regarding credit scores. Nevertheless, as Chuljin said, I would rather not put my rating through an unnecessary hard pull. Does anyone know if the AGR World MC requires a strong credit rating?

Does anyone know if the AGR World MC requires a strong credit rating?I don't think anyone here is going to know the answer to that question.

If you want the card, apply for it. Unless you're going to be following with a dozen more applications, the hard pull ding is not going to make a dent on your credit rating.

And, as a college sophomore, more important than what your actual credit score is (since you seem to handle credit wisely and probably aren't in line for a mortgage in the near future) is establishing a credit history with a single card.

I see, there is a benefit to sticking with the same card for an extended period of time? I figured that building a credit history would be accomplished by paying off the balance every month on whatever credit card I own. I didn't think that switching to a new card would impinge on that as long as I do not switch frequently.

On the other hand, I think I've already demonstrated that I'm quite new to all of this :) Have I got it wrong?

I see, there is a benefit to sticking with the same card for an extended period of time? I figured that building a credit history would be accomplished by paying off the balance every month on whatever credit card I own. I didn't think that switching to a new card would impinge on that as long as I do not switch frequently.

Unless your original card has an onerous fee, it's definitely to your advantage to keep it open and active, making small purchases every so often. The oldest open account on your credit history will positively impact your score.

My first credit card was the original AGR MasterCard from MBNA (now BofA). Even when AGR discontinued its affiliation with MBNA about five years ago, I kept the account open since it's my oldest active credit account. I keep it stashed in an emergency kit and still use it every couple months just to buy coffee. :)

Now, the bank can always unilaterally close the card account if they feel you're not charging frequently enough. Not much you can do about that.

Good luck with the Chase AGR card! It's a really great product. Even if you're not approved for the World card, you may be approved for a "Platinum" version with the same earning benefits. Hope this info is helpful.

If you want a datapoint, I was rejected for an AGR card. Since I didn't have a credit score (as in, not a bad score, but a completely blank credit report), that was pretty much what I expected; the surprise would have been if they'd given me one.

I mostly applied in hopes that having a rejection in their system would stop the junk mail from coming, since other efforts at halting it were unsuccessful. It hasn't; they still send me mailings offering me a card once a month or so. Ah, well.

You may also want to consider applying for the Continental Airlines Chase Debit Card as an alternative. This checking account will offer you 25000 Continental Miles for joining that can be readily exchanged over to AGR Points at a 1:1 ratio in blocks of 5000 miles.

The pro to this is that you don't have that $2000 spending requirement for the last 18K points as you do with the Amtrak card, but the con is that you have to keep it a bit active (5 transactions a month minimum or a direct deposit) to avoid a $6 a month service fee.

#1. I recommend that you sign up for www.creditkarma.com. It is a free website that will allow you to monitor your credit rating. It has all sorts of tools you can use to estimate what happens to your score if you do certain things (like get a hard pull, open a new account, close an account, etc.). It's a legit website...you can Google them for confirmation as there have been lots of positive articles in the WSJ, NYTimes, etc.

#2. As a general rule you should never close your oldest credit card account because it will negatively impact your score.

#3. While the hard pull hurts your credit, it might actually help your credit score to open a new account. Mine actually went UP after I got the Chase card. That is because if you don't have enough lines of credit that actually hurts your credit score. Believe it or not, having more creditors can actually help your score because it is part of the calculation to look at how many creditors have given you a line of credit...how many trust you...generally as long as you don't have a poor debt to credit ratio, more accounts help. Also, when you get a new account your available credit goes up, while in theory your debt stays the same....that also helps your score.

All of this info can be found on creditkarma.com too...I really highly recommend the site. It is fantastic.

Thanks for the input everyone, I've gone ahead and applied. I'll let you know how it goes :)

Thanks for the input everyone, I've gone ahead and applied. I'll let you know how it goes :)

You can check your status here: https://wwwa.applyonlinenow.com/USSQapp/Ctl/entry?pid=status_query&bankCode=IBCR&language=en

Hello again all,

Thanks again for your input. For anyone reading this thread in the future, I was indeed accepted for the World Mastercard - although when I checked my credit report, it appeared that my parents history had bled onto mine (which might have helped).

Congratulations!

From the time you applied, how long until you received the card (assuming you were approved).

Thanks.

From the time you applied, how long until you received the card (assuming you were approved).

Thanks.

Roughly 3 weeks.

Hello again all,

Thanks again for your input. For anyone reading this thread in the future, I was indeed accepted for the World Mastercard - although when I checked my credit report, it appeared that my parents history had bled onto mine (which might have helped).
If your parents had ever had an additional card issued in your name on their accounts, this could have precipitated this.

While you would expect additional cards to be meaningless to the credit bureaus, some card-issuing banks do actually report them in some capacity, whether explicitly as an additional card that the additional cardholder is not responsible for or even as a card that the additional cardholder holds joint responsibility for!

I've had additional cards issued on all of my accounts for one other member of my family as an emergency backup, and some (but not all) of my cards do show on her credit report. I thought it odd, but whatever...

Congrats! Did they end up doing a hard pull or soft pull? If a hard pull, which credit reporting agency did they use? I'm interested in this card too. Thanks.

Hello again all,

Thanks again for your input. For anyone reading this thread in the future, I was indeed accepted for the World Mastercard - although when I checked my credit report, it appeared that my parents history had bled onto mine (which might have helped).