When Miles Whip posted on Doctor of Credit that Evolve was not charging fees for using a credit card because it was coming up as debit, I quickly reached over the closest Mastercard I had: Barclay’s Miles and More and dropped a grand into my auto insurance. On a similar note, I wish I had scheduled payments in advanced like Grant did. On top of those charges, my Nationwide Visa Buxx was recently reloaded using the Miles and More so I had about $1,500 in total charges.
The Theory:
If we go back to my post on new cards, I was originally denied for the UPromise with some BS answer of “you’re a great customer” with the on time payments, keep it up type of verbal garbage. My experience was very similar to this Reddit user Lupuscanis:
I recently applied for the Barclay’s US Airways Card, and my application was marked as pending. So I called the recon line and the analyst walked me through a few questions regarding income and tenure at my current occupational position. I answered honestly.
However, she also asked about my recent activity in opening so many new cards. I explained that I was new to this and especially for the UA Airways card that I would be flying with them several times in the next few years.
The only difference, I wasn’t new at this and had just about a 2 year credit file with Barclay’s. 8 days after the decline, I had the charges I mentioned above posted on my card. It was just pure coincidence that I had any kind of charge at the time of the second call to Barclay’s reconsideration with the aforementioned $1500 in charges
During the call, the second agent looked into the application and noted that I was already declined by the previous agent. I asked her to open the application again and to review it and tell me exactly why I was declined and I regurgitated all the positive things the first agent gave me despite all of these great things that were mentioned. The second agent asked me again what my salary and years of employment and was able to instantly approve me only if I moved some of the credit extended to me. I gladly accepted to move credit to be approved.
What this means:
I believe that if you sign up for Barclay’s every 3 months, then you need to use your card so the appearance does not look like you are signing up purely for the sign up bonus and sock drawering it. Beyond that, I’m not sure how they would handle folks who sign up and close accounts because my method is to open accounts and keep them.
Miles to Memories has a post about keeping at most 1 card opened for instant approvals. I’m going to keep my 3, and see what happens in 3 months to see if I can get card #4.
Glad to hear of your approval, but curious as to why you want the Upromise card. Is there no cap on the 3%?
I picked up the Arrival+ in late-Oct, USAIR in mid-Dec, and SallieMae in late-Dec. I had to recon the USAIR and SallieMae, move available credit. They were curious as to why I applied for 8 cards in a 2 month span. I directed them to look at my student loan payments to the tune of $1500/month instead, emphasizing that my loans are almost paid off and will have a large amount of disposable income (not that I’ll be using it :-P). Social engineering almost always wins in recon until you get to the end stages of churning.
@Henrygeorge: Upormise is 10% off a lot of places like Walmart and others where you will never get that deal, but you have to stay on top of hat you are due. At the end of last year I gve up using it because I had to keep calling for the second 5%. Not worth my time,except the 5+5% off at Giftcertificates.com. They sell American Air gift cards
@Henrygeorge Thanks, no cap on the earnings – the UPromise card is going to play an important role in my gift card churning endeavors. That’s pretty awesome you were able to get all those cards so quickly
@traderprofit, I will keep in mind the troubles and see how it works out for me
Yeah, Barclaycard are obsessed with seeing spending on your cards. I don’t think it really matters how many cards you have BUT you need to have spending on all of those cards. E.g, let’s see they want to see $3,000 in spending if you have 3 cards then you’ll need three times that to be approved for a fourth.
I’ll have to remember to put some charges on all the cards when I go for #4
Although it doesn’t seem possible, I think the agents have a ton of leeway on approvals. I did an app for the US Airways card too. The person told me the same line, great income, great history, but no dice. No moving credit, no changing his mind. So I waited two days, didn’t charge on my other cards but tried again. Got a woman this time and she was the total opposite. Asked if I’d be OK moving credit line, I jumped and have the card now. Super odd over there.
That is odd, congrats on the new card!
It is an odd bank, maybe because it is British, and some of its policies and practices take some getting used to, especially if what you’re already used to are predictable newcomers like Amex, Chase or Citi. But I did get used to them and I got OKd online without human intervention for a second US Airways card over the weekend less than five months after getting the first. That 90 day Barclay app tracking window mentioned on flyertalk was blank. I have been traveling overseas where manufactured spending is dicey at best, and I made no hard pulls between the Barclay apps. When I opened that first US Air account in 2014 I quickly transferred $2,500 generated from minimum spend on another airline card to the Barclay offer of interest-free 15-month balance with a 3% fee that was then available. I’ve paid off about a third since, but I have carried a balance from the first week of account opening. I make small purchases on the card once or twice a month, at least since the foreign exchange fees disappeared a couple months back, because I want plain arithmetic until the interest-free balance is paid up and a potential accounting tripwire disappears. That needs to be tracked because my card actually charges 24.99 percent, the highest of three rate tranches, and it was issued after Barclay checked my TU when it was 740. This made me wonder what it takes to get into the 14.99 percent grouping and what percentage of applicants manage to do it. I complained about the rate at approval time but before activating that first card and agreed to an offer for an extra 5,000 miles for $1,000 spend in 90 days, which finally posted last month. I intend to again attempt some modifications on the new card before I activate it. But oddities and statement inconveniences aside, I will likely soon have about 112,000 AA miles I got in exchange for a few keyboard strokes, periodic strenuous workouts on my patience, and $178 in direct Barclay annual fees. That is truly a bargain in my book, and there has been absolutely no heavy lifting involved. I don’t see much of a future for this card in its present sign-up bonus form beyond a few more weeks, but if it’s there I’ll still try to get another one four months or so down the road.
Thanks for sharing your experience and feedback