105K & Applying for 2 Amex Business Cards in the Same Day
One of the coolest strategies I have found when applying for credit cards is applying for multiple cards in the same day from the same bank. The main reason to do this is because some banks will combine multiple credit inquiries if they are performed on the same day. It saves a few credit points and overall is a neat little “hack”.
Of course I don’t generally recommend getting multiple cards from the same bank as a regular strategy. The truth is that it really isn’t sustainable in most cases. Eventually the bank will see you opening up too many accounts and most likely will deny you. I only use this strategy when there are two very good offers that are worth applying for. My wife ran into that situation earlier this week.
Two American Express Business Cards – Same Day
One of the banks that merges credit inquiries is American Express. Earlier this year I applied and was approved for both the Amex Business Platinum and the Personal Delta Gold SkyMiles cards in the same day. At that time I was a little light on Amex cards and easily absorbed the two new accounts. Of course the driver for those applications was the 50K SkyMiles bonus and the 150K Biz Platinum bonus.
My wife ran into a situation earlier this week where it made sense for her to apply for two American Express cards as well. She received a 75K offer on the Business Gold card that was about to expire, so she had to act or let it go. In my experience 75K is almost as good as it gets for that card. (Someone did once report a 100K offer.)
Of course the other card my wife wanted to get was the SPG Business Amex. She has previously had both the personal and business versions of the SPG card, however it has been 12 months so she is eligible for the bonus on the business card again. As I wrote when the 30K bonus was announced, it is a card that is high on both of our lists.
Since I had previously opened two American Express cards in one day before, I knew it was possible, however I had never heard of anyone opening two American Express business cards in the same day. I theorized the process wouldn’t be any different and believed it should work. Then it came time to submit the applications.
The Applications
To apply for the cards, my wife filled out both applications simultaneously in two different browsers. This way the applications could be submitted relatively quickly after each other. We made the choice not to submit them simultaneously since I didn’t want the system to flag one as a mistake or duplicate.
After filling out all of the information, she submitted the Business Gold app. It took about a minute before she received a message that they needed more time to process the application. Then she submitted the SPG card app and about a minute later received the same message again. Both apps then asked if she would like to add employee cards in case she was approved. After filling out the names for the employee cards and hitting submit, both applications went to an approval screen. She had two new accounts!
The Bonuses & Value
My wife will receive 75K Membership Rewards points and 30K SPG points after a total of $10K ($5K for each card) in spending during the first 3 months. While values are highly subjective, I do think those bonuses are worth a total of about $1,200 or so which is very nice for two card apps. She wasn’t ready for a full application round, so she didn’t apply for cards from any other banks.
One other to consider with these cards (and any new Amex card for that matter) is that they both are eligible for Amex Offers and Small Business Saturday. (Employee cards are eligible too.) This means that these two cards and the corresponding employee cards will probably generate hundreds of dollars more in value over the next year.
Update: I just noticed that Frequent Miler actually wrote about his wife’s very similar experience getting two Business cards. Somehow I missed it while I was traveling.
Conclusion
This was an exciting pair of applications since it confirmed that it is possible to get two American Express business cards in the same day. In this case it was one credit card and one charge card, however I do believe it is probably possible to get any combination of cards as long as you don’t exceed your overall limit with the bank. Either way, 105K valuable points from two applications made Sunday a very good day.
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Great post, thanks for sharing. The timing is funny, last night I got the SPG Biz Card approved and then tonight I applied for the personal card and was prompted to call customer service. They said because I applied for 2 cards in the same family within 24 hours, they need to put a hold on the decision for up to 5 days, to prevent fraudulent applications. I am a long term AMEX card holder so they seemed to be apologetic and said a decision would be made shortly. I don’t know if this is an isolated case or not but just wanted to inform everyone what happened with me. Keep up the great work Sean!
Yeah some people have reported the 5 day wait when you apply for 2 credit cards. My wife was able to get both SPG cards in the same day, but that was years ago. It seems more recently you can get one credit card and one charge card but not two credit cards.
Update–I called in to AMEX because the SPG Personal card was still pending after 5 days and they approved me on the spot. So it is good news but seems like they making it more difficult these days
Glad to hear it!
I don’t think you can open two credit cards with Amex on the same day. You can submit them together but they will only process the second one after 5 days.
One charge card and one credit card should be no problem.
I didn’t mention it in this article, however when my wife got both the SPG personal and business cards a few years ago she applied and was approved in the same day.
Thanks for posting your experience; this is good info to have!
I usually end up applying late at night (round midnight). Do you know if applications outside of normal business hours are more prone to “need more time”? I’ve had several do that and whether I call in or just wait a day or so, they always get approved. I thought maybe it just sits in a queue until someone looks at it in the morning..?
I don’t think that happens. The past several times I have applied for Amex cards I have gotten the pending message and then approval almost right away. With Amex you can check their website http://www.americanexpress.com/applicationstatus One time I was told it needed more processing and checked right away and it showed approved. I’m not sure what is happening there.
As for other banks, the computer will assess it and if it can’t approve the app then it will wait for someone to look at it. Generally it takes several days for a manual review in my experience, but of course you can call and get that done quicker.
Thanks, Shawn! I’ll check out the application status site next time.
Hi Shawn,
Great post. Questions: how long did your wife have her SPG biz card open before she closed it?
And did she close it first before applying for new SPG biz again or after?
She kept the card for a year and then cancelled it when the annual fee was due. She cancelled about 18 months ago. The rule is the card must be closed for 12 months before you can get the bonus again.
Business Gold is a charge card and SPG business is a credit card right? You can apply for as many charge cards in one day and only one credit card, right? or you can even apply for 2 business credit cards in the same day? If so, can we combine lets say the Business Gold, SPG Business and SPG personal?
You are right this was one charge and one credit card. A couple of years ago my wife did get approved for both SPG cards in one day though.
is there a any referral link for amex business account let me know.. I can apply through that
No that was a targeted offer that she received in the mail unfortunately.
I was wondering the same thing. Regular BRG sucks.
There was a 75K public offer late last year, so there definitely is a chance it will happen again.