Yes I know, I'm supposed to be in what credit card obsessed myFICO forum members call "gardening." I'm letting the current cards age with tender loving care in order to up my FICO score due to the very important calculation of the average age of accounts. If you keep applying and receiving new cards, it can lower your average and keep you bogged down score-wise.
But the offer was too good to pass on. American Express (The ACTUAL American Express card issuers, not the AMEX provided under another bank like I have had for a while.) offered their AMEX Blue Cash Everyday card with the promise to earn a bonus of $150 if the card is used to charge over $500 in the next three months. Well, that's just too easy. It's like free money! It comes with the usual 0% APR for a year, then it goes to a decent 12.99%. With no annual fee and a $4000 credit limit right off the bat, I really was given the Godfather offer.
But here's the REAL kicker. It seems that the slight ding the new card would have done to my overall age of credit accounts is a totally mute point. In fact, from what the myFICO forum gurus indicate, I'm far better off now that I accepted this offer.
It seems that the computer system at the American Express Company is like the one depicted in the movie "Wargames" and, like the title quotation alludes to, their memory, like the W.O.P.R., is long-lived indeed. As you can see by the screenshot below, despite the fact that in 1986 some rep from AMEX harassed me while I was going through tough times after I defaulted on payments, despite the fact that they were named in my 1992 bankruptcy, despite all that, they are crediting me as being a cardmember since the original year I got my first American Express green card. That was 30 fucking years ago, way back in 1985!
American Express was the first major credit card I ever got. And it was the most painful to lose during my first financial crisis.
Like the Stones croon: Time really is on my side!
