This is a pretty simplistic view of what has become a very difficult problem. Clearly, Amex (and now the other lounges) have been trying to solve this for years without much success.

"The fact of the matter" (as you put it) is not just that Amex will "approve anybody with a pulse." Amex is in the business of extending credit; that is literally what a credit card company does. They certainly have the data to understand whether they are extending credit to people that have the ability to pay that credit back or not. And if delinquency rates were out of bounds they would reign that back in.

The problem is not "who" is approved, but rather the value proposition of the card. At this point many who hold this card, particulatly those with the Schwab version, are almost being paid by Amex to carry the card. So, many here like to complain about lounge crowding while crowing that they are paying ~$700 per year for the card and they should not have to endure crowded lounges. But the reality is that literally nobody is paying $700 per year, the effective annual fee is much, much lower.

Simple example for Schwab cardholder:

• $695 annual fee
• -$200 customer appreciation rebate (from Schwab)
• -$200 airline credit
• -$240 digital entertainment credit
• -$200 FHR hotel credit
• -$150 Walmart+ credit
• -$200 Uber Cash
• ... etc, I'll stop here

Effective annual fee: -$495

I mean is there really any wonder why the lounges would be crowded? Even assuming that someone doesn't take advantage of all those credits or they don't value them at full face value (and there are even more credits I didn't even list, e.g. Saks, etc.) the card unquestionably offers pretty compelling value for the annual fee. Is there really any surprise the card is successful and lounges are jammed?

When people here say things like "they approve anyone with a pulse" that is usually code for "they should make it harder for other people to get the card, but not harder for me to get the card." Unfortunately that doesn't address the root cause.

At this point, the lounge crowding situation has changed (and effectively locked in) to a new norm and the reality is that the credit card companies (Amex/Chase/Capital One) have somewhat changed their business models semi-permanently and they probably aren't going back to the old ways. They need a stream of people signing up for the card every year to keep the revenue flowing.

Basic economics tells us that if you have constrained (and in the case of physical lounges, somewhat fixed) supply then the only way to change things is on the demand side. That means increasing (and probably drastically) that effective annual fee and ensuring the card is more expensive to hold. For example, in the early days of when I got this card it provided lounge access to most of the airline lounges (AA/UA/CO, etc) and frankly the lounges weren't really crowded at all. But I was also paying $450 for the card and there really weren't any "coupons" to speak of. My out of pocket for the card was pretty much the full fee. Thus, less people were willing to spring for the card.

I've often advocated in these forums that I'd love to see the real, effective annual fee for this card go up to an actual, say, $750 or even $1000 per year and actually provide a genuine, premium experience. And yes, that is self serving as well, because its a price point I could afford (and would be willing) to pay, if the experience was genuinely a premium one. That said, my dream solution, at this point, will simply never happen. The credit card companies chose "volume" as their strategy, so they have to keep getting people to sign up for cards.

Anyway, that was a rather long winded way of saying the problem is not so much about "who" Amex will approve, I think it's very unlikely that many of the folks they are approving for the Platinum card are in fact defaulting on their debt (and remember, their core business is extending credit and ensuring that its paid back). The bottom line is simply that the cards economics are quite attractive to a lot of people and unless that changes this problem will effectively never get better. It's like building highways; by the time they build and open new lounges there will be even more people holding the card and the new lounge will be instantly full.

Regards