krazykanuck

That's your opinion. I disagree. 25k MR pts for $1k spend is a nice low effort sign up bonus. 25k MR is about 1/3 of the way to a r/t business class to Japan on ANA. Find me a better pro rata value for a 1k min spend.

drewguy

Ha - reminds me of a story my dad liked to tell. He was traveling in the early 1980s in Africa and apparently everyone there (who had a credit card) had a gold or silver card (or whatever metals they used). He pulled out his green card and it got passed around the restaurant like it was some very special card, a la the Centurion card.

Anyway, OP's question is exactly why I switched out for another Amex product - didn't seem to come with $95 worth of benefits compared to the many other products that suited me better.

RapidTravelChai

Pick it up for 25k, sometime in the first year good chance to get a 10k pay over time offer, also a good shot at nice upgrades to PRG or Platinum without once per lifetime language and scoop up sync offers along the way. Long-term is up to how much you use the offers and if you scale up with 5 AUs for $30 total/year. I've been getting much better offers on my charge cards (Green, Gold, Biz Platinum) than my credit cards (Delta, Hilton, SPG).

Xlr

I suppose it could be a decent offer for people new to credit (25K points is much better than the competition at that level), but anyone with 2+ years of credit history needn't bother.

That said, I'm not sure what FICO score this card requires.

sdsearch

Does Amex really give charge cards to people with no credit history?

I would think a charge card (with its policy of no preset spend limit) is something that would very hard for a person with no credit history to get.

In fact, many people think that Amex the bank in general is harder than many other banks for someone with no credit history.

Meanwhile, you seem to be forgetting the once-in-a-lifetime limit at Amex. Someone with a deep credit history may have used up all the Amex cards with bigger MR bonuses! If you can no longer get any Gold or a Plat signup bonus because you got them all already ready (in that past 6 or fewer years), why not a Green for 25k more?

mia

The no present spending limit policy -and- the requirement to pay the full balance each and every cycle, reduces American Express' credit risk compared to issuing a credit card.

blaz

Yes, they do. In fact, the Green, Gold and Platinum have exactly the same underwriting criteria (based on circumstantial evidence on internet forums), so you can in theory get a Platinum with zero credit history.

Not at all. In fact, based on my own experience, it is the easiest bank to deal with. I opened a bank account and credit card ($5k credit line) with HSBC when I moved to the US in February 2013. In May 2013 I got the Amex Delta Gold with an $8k credit line. I had no credit score at that point, as one needs at least 6 months of credit history to generate a credit score. I did have to send in a payslip, but that was about it. As long as Amex believes you have the means to pay it off, you can get one of their cards with basically no credit history.

fliesdelta

Yes, I know this from first hand experience.

The very first card I applied for was the Amex green card, in 1986, two months after I got my first "real" job. I mailed the application, and a few weeks later I was surprised with the card in the mail. That card was upgraded to gold a few years later, and eventually to platinum.

krazykanuck

So family story for you. As you should guess from my username, I'm Canadian, as is my family. My grandparents moved to the US 15ish years ago and got their green cards. But when my grandparents got divorced, my grandmother found herself with no US credit history since she was just an AU on my grandfather's BankOne CC. (eagle eyed observers would notice what that morphed into)

Anyway after the divorce, between her lack of knowledge of how this thing works, and everything else, she got 2 CCs in her own name. Amex Green and a Suntrust Visa. She now has a Platinum card and is subsidizing our benefits because she doesn't take advantage of any of the perks.

bgriff

No preset spending limit is not the same thing as no spending limit. Everyone has some limit in Amex's system after which they will not let you spend any more on a charge card, and I suspect for someone getting a charge card with very little other credit history, that limit is fairly low, though it may still be higher than the limit such a person would likely get on a credit card since a charge card in theory puts the issuer less at risk.

You can get a sense of your own limit by going to "Check Spending Power" in the Account Services section of the Amex website. I checked whether Amex would let me spend $20K and it informed me that yes, they would, and even specified what my Platinum charge card limit is exactly, which is apparently in the mid-five digits. (There may be a bit of leeway to extend that limit if you call them, but the same is likely true of many credit cards, and will depend very much on your history with the issuer.)

I guess the only thing that makes this not a "preset" spending limit is that it in theory moves around more often than a credit card limit does? I'm not really sure. Plus there's the leeway factor.

ayn

I liked amex and I got the green charge card when I turned 18 in college and have been a cardmember since. I think the AF was only $50 back then, for $95 I might not have done it. I actually think the green card looks the best and it's iconic. I've upgraded since but when I see a green card now (which is very rare) I definitely feel the nostalgia.

fliesdelta

I read somewhere that Warren Buffet carries a green card. I figured, that's the ultimate statement in status. No need to carry a fancy Centurion or whatever, you know damn well whatever amount he charges on his green card will go through, and he really doesn't need any of the Centurion perks... he travels on his own jets, for example.

jiaogulan

What is it, Cherry Coke and the Green Card? I think he enjoys his humble possessions.

fliesdelta

Right. The difference between impressing someone with a fancy card (shallow), or with your own person (not shallow).

JHake10

There is a YouTube channel called Ask Sebby. This channel has a video everyday about maximizing travel and cash back through credit card points. Today's video was about ... the Green Card (and I immediately thought of this thread).

The takeaway was, let's say in the past you signed up for other AMEX charge cards (Gold, PRG, Platinum) and for whatever reason you don't have them anymore (doesn't make sense to pay the AF, etc.). You can get the Green Card and wait until you have an AMEX offer to upgrade to one of the products you've already owned for X amount of points. This would be a way of double dipping on sign up bonuses for the same product which wouldn't normally be available if you just signed up for the card again due to AMEX's once in a lifetime rule.

I'm not a chunner so I never think of these things. Pretty interesting though.