Search Results for: barclays

Introduction

We talked about Bank of America shenanigans about a year ago, and US Bank shenanigans about six months ago. As a result I think many of you have card anniversaries and half-anniversaries to consider and it’s probably worth a re-read of both. That said, today we’re going to do the same for Barclays because they’ve just increased sign-up bonuses on three of their main four co-brand cards:

  • Wyndham Earner Business: 65,000 points after spending $2,000 in 60 days and another 10,000 points after a single purchase on an employee card (Update: corrected bonus from 60,000 to 65,000 points. Thanks to Miles)
  • JetBlue Business: 70,000 points after spending $2,000 in 90 days and another 10,000 points after a single purchase on an employee card
  • Hawaiian Business: 80,000 points after spending $2,000 in 90 days

If you live in New England or Florida, the JetBlue card is a great option. If you live near a Speedway, the Wyndham card is a stand out. If you like churning satire, the Hawaiian card can’t be beat.

Rules

Barclays doesn’t have as many loopholes as legacy banks, but there are some. Here’s what you should know:

  • Barclays will combine hard pulls in the same day
  • Barclays will approve up to three credit cards in the same day
  • Barclays business cards won’t appear on a credit report
  • Barclays’ reconsideration department will work with you more than most banks will
  • Barclays won’t let you have multiple versions of the same card

To contact Barclays reconsideration, dial (866) 408-4064 for business cards or (866) 408-4064 for personal cards. When you call, a simple “I was hoping that you’d take another look at my application and help me find away to get approved. I’m happy to provide any additional information you may need!” may be enough to negotiate your way into an approval after you’re denied.

How I’m Playing It

I don’t need more JetBlue points and I really don’t need more Hawaiian points, but Vacasa redemptions via Wyndham are hard to beat. So even though the AA Business co-brand card offer isn’t at a relative high, I’ll be pairing it with the Wyndham card application for a combined hard-pull without messing with my quest to drop below 5/24.

Good luck!

Barclays reconsideration staff is much friendlier than it looks.

Yesterday’s post spurred plenty of questions, discussion, and further digging. Sam at HelpMeBuildCredit.com started by letting me know about other heightened offers from Barclays, and I heard from many of you about their rules. Let’s go over both:

  1. The JetBlue Business Card has an offer for:

    – 80,000 TrueBlue points and a $99 statement credit after spending $2,000 in 90 days

    The card has a $99 annual fee which is effectively erased by the statement credit. As with yesterday’s Barclay AA card offer, this one is probably a “get the sign-up bonus, sock-drawer, then cancel or get a retention offer after your one year anniversary” card. That said, I know a few of you like to keep it and spend $50,000 a year for Mosaic status.

  2. The Hawaiian Business Mastercard has an offer for:

    – 80,000 Hawaiian Airlines miles and a $99 statement credit after spending $2,000 in 90 days

    This card also has a $99 annual fee effectively erased by the statement credit. This is also a sock-drawer and cancel after a year card.

And, a few things that came up in the last day:

  • Q: Can I have multiple versions of the same Barclays card?
    A: No
  • Q: Do I have to close a card to apply for it again?
    A: Yes
  • Q: Will Barlcays offer to match a retention bonus if you recently opened a card?
    A: Sometimes, YMMV
  • Q: Do I really have to wait six months between closing a particular card and opening the same card again?
    A: Probably, YMMV
  • Q: Does Barclays care about credit line cycling?
    A: They don’t seem to care on business cards as long as it’s 2-3x per month, they’re stricter on personal cards
  • Q: Barclays doesn’t care about anonymous bill payments.
    A: That’s not a question

And finally, I’ve been told that Barclays may not enforce 6/24 at all on personal cards — if you have a datapoint related to that I’d appreciate it if you let me know.

Happy Wednesday friends!

Against all odds, Barclays comes back for another post.

Barclays has heightened sign-up bonuses on several of their cards rolling out this week:

  1. The Barclays AAdvantage World Elite Business Mastercard (editors note: just typing that card name made my eyes glaze over, and its 15 trademarks almost made me ditch this post entirely) has an interesting new sign-up bonus:

    – 80,000 AA miles and a $95 statement credit after spending $2,000 in 90 days

    This is effectively a free 80,000 miles for $2,000 in spend in the first year after the $95 annual fee is offset by the statement credit, and it might be interesting beyond the sign-up bonus if you’re playing the AA LoyaltyPoints game. If you’re not, sock drawer it after hitting $2,000 in spend and close it in after a year.

  2. The Barclays Wyndham Business Visa card (editors note: I’m not typing the whole credit card name after the above fiasco) also has an interesting sign-up bonus:

    – 65,000 Wyndham points after spending $1,000 in 90 days
    – 10,000 additional points for making a single purchase on an employee card

    This one doesn’t have a statement credit to offset the $95 annual fee unfortunately, but if you can manufacture spend at gas stations it’s probably worth holding long term even with the fee.

Now, because we’re gamers, let’s talk about gaming:

  • Barclays will combine hard credit card pulls for applications made on the same business day, and you can be approved for up to three cards a day
  • If you have an existing Barclays credit card, spend a lot, pay off your balance, and then apply to boost your approval odds.
  • You can churn Barclays cards, but you typically need to wait six months between churns
  • Barclays has a 6/24 rule that’s usually enforced (you’ll probably be denied for a card if you’ve had 6 new accounts on your credit report in the last 24 months), but big spend on existing Barclays cards can bypass the rule

Just redeem those AA miles on partner airlines if you can. Unless you’re in to the whole “regulated garbage” things that is.

If you have a Barclay’s credit card, Check your email inbox for a 60,000 miles or $600 spend offer ($3,000 spend required). So far, people have received the offer on:

  • Aviator
  • Arrival (no annual fee version)
  • JetBlue
  • Uber
Crazy nurse mind-melding with a brain
Barclay executive consulting the marketing department

(HT: Windbag Miles)

  1. American Express Membership Rewards has a 30% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic through the end of May. These are best for:

    – Delta One to and from Europe in business
    – Necker Island trips
    – Air New Zealand business to and from the US

    They have decent availability on their own metal for premium cabin space too, but fuel surcharges are high so it’s usually a more useful mental model to think about those as roughly the same price as a coach ticket plus some miles for business class redemptions.
  2. Express (unrelated to the American version; also both a clothing store and a former a medium tier gift card on the resale markets) has filed for bankruptcy. It’s time to think seriously about what to do with inventory you’re holding, and to reinforce that holding inventory carries risk. (Thanks to GCG)
  3. Virgin Australia flights are now bookable with Qatar Avios at attractive rates, especially for short and medium haul economy.
  4. Kent Brockman famously said that democracy doesn’t work, and reddit added a datapoint to that debate after I declared that US Bank is the most ghetto bank. According to the popular vote, the most ghetto banks in decreasing order are:

    – Citi
    – Bank of America
    – Barclays

    US Bank didn’t even make the top three. Why is Citi less ghetto than US Bank? Because pay by phone friends, pay by phone.

US Bank’s corporate landscaping signage presents additional evidence.

Let’s discuss recent changes in how major credit card churning banks operate today. I believe some of them are indicative of major banks’ views about current state of the economy their outlook for the near future, but I’ll leave it to you to decide which items apply.

  1. Bank of America has been reducing credit lines on existing consumer and business credit cards in a haphazard fashion, whether or not the cards have activity tied to them. They’ve also been notifying people inconsistently about these reductions, some receiving paper letters, some receiving emails, and some receiving no notification.

    I’d suggest checking your existing card portfolio and if you’ve been affected, a call to customer service asking them to reverse the reduction may work.
  2. American Express seems to have undergone a “credit profile reset” last week. The symptoms that lead to that conclusion:

    – Some that have never had call-in offers for employee cards now have them
    – Some that have been ineligible for referral bonuses are no longer ineligible
    – Some that haven’t had access to AmEx Offers now have access
    – There was a single report of being approved for AmEx cards after being locked out for years

    I have no idea if this is temporary or permanent, so I’d take advantage quickly if one of these scenarios maps to you. Always be probing.
  3. There’s been confusion about how banks combine credit pulls:

    – US Bank inquiries will be combined the next business day after pulls
    – Barclays will only combine business inquires with other business inquiries, and personal inquiries with other personal inquiries
    – Bank of America will often not re-pull credit for up to 30 days, but if it does pull multiple times on the same day, it’ll be combined the next business day
  4. US Bank, the most ghetto of all major churning banks, has a few changes:

    – They’ve reduced the overall value of their mid-tier Altitude Connect card
    – Opening a brokerage account used to be a backdoor into US Bank accounts when you weren’t in their footprint. In the last six months or so, there’s been only mixed success with that method, but apparently opening a CD is a workaround

    US Bank remains a great sleeper bank for churning, don’t sleep on that sleeper!

Have a nice weekend!

A churner enjoying a lie-flat trip hears about US Bank cards.

  1. Chase Pay Yourself Back categories for Q2 for the Sapphire Reserve are:

    – Wholesale clubs
    – Pet supply
    – Gas stations
    – Annual fee

    We lost grocery stores, but gas stations and wholesale clubs both typically sell gift cards.
  2. The Alaska MileagePlan shopping portal has an offer for $500 bonus miles after $100 spend by April 8.

    Giftcards.com remains available through the shopping portal, and there are still ways to liquidate these both online and in person.
  3. Do this now: Check for targeted Q2 spending offers on Chase cards for 5x on up to $1,000 spend at grocery, gas, and home improvement stores, all of which sell gift cards. Cards with less valuable currencies like the IHG card have slightly higher multipliers like 8x.
  4. If you have a Chase United card, check for a targeted Rewards Your Way spend bonus. Reported offers include your choice of bonus PQP or 24,000-36,000 miles for $10,000-$20,000 in spend. (Thanks to BrianInMD)
  5. The Barclays Aviator Red AA card has an increased referral sign-up bonus of 70,000 miles for the referred after a single purchase, and another 10,000 miles for the referrer. The $99 annual fee is not waived for the first year.

Yes friends, there was no April Fool’s Day fake post yesterday because at MEAB, every day is fool’s day (?).

EDITORS NOTE: In 2024, I’ve introduced Guest Post Saturdays. I’m still looking for more guest posts, please reach out if you have something interesting to share with the community! Today’s guest post is from a strong community contributor, and the official churning historian, Hank.

Confucius’s churning manual says that if you want to know the future then study the past. With that in mind it’s time to get out the popcorn and enjoy some unicorns from 10+ years ago.

  • Funding Citi checking accounts for $100k/pop on 4% everywhere cash back card.  No elaborate shenanigans.  Build a $100k CL on the Barclays Travelocity MasterCard (MEAB Unsung Hero card 2009 – 2015), fund account, repeat.
  • Venmo no fee $3k/month unlimited accounts. For it’s first several years Venmo allowed up to $3k/month of fee free credit spend per account. An account was an email address, a phone number (google voice), and a unique credit card (employee card).
  • 20+ BOA cards in one sitting. While nowadays BOA has credit line rules in place to throttle velocity historically a good “App-o-Rama” could net 20 cards in a sitting. The downside: highest cashback bonus was $200. Upside: easy to combine credit lines for other shenanigans.
  • Buy GC sell same platform 3% profit. Gift card reselling websites didn’t used to have strong guardrails. You could buy (for example) Target gift cards, stack rebates, and sell the same gc back for a profit. Repeat, scale.
  • Gold bullion by the pound. While the better known play was dollar coins from the US mint the back saving move was gold coins on Ebay. By stacking a series of rebates you could earn 2-5% spread + points. Limits were float (things haven’t changed) and your comfort levels with constantly driving 6 figures of bullion to the post office in a beat up old ford.

While the specific plays above are long gone there are variations of each circling around to this day. EDITOR’S NOTE: Always be probing

– Hank

Scrooge McDuck explaining to a police officer why thousands of dollars of dollar coins are spilling out of his trunk after a traffic accident.