40,000 US Airways Miles

Last week I read on ThePointsGuy about the US Airways Credit Card from Barclay’s that was offering 40,000 Miles to sign up and up to another 10,000 for a balance transfer (bad deal as it is 1 mile per dollar but due to the 3% fee you are effectively buying them for 3 cents each…). As I had already made a mini App O Rama for our Citi Hilton Cards as outlined here, I added in the US Airways Card, basically because of the following criteria:

I don’t have any Barclays Cards yet, and the providers start getting a little picky when you keep going back to the same well, in fact for Mrs Saverocity to obtain the Citi Hilton Reserve it did require an additional phone call in to get approved (and moving part credit line in).   Make sure that you don’t close cards when they ask if you want to do this, just switch partial balances over.  When your credit score is calculated one of the criteria they consider is age of credit relationship, so if you keep a few fee free cards that you never use that keeps the length of your credit long and your score higher.

Today, US Airways announced the merger with American Airlines has been approved, and that they will be merging their Frequent Flyer programs, so I am happy to have American AAdvantage Miles and US Airways Miles in my portfolio so I can now see if they will merge into one account of if I should cash them in for flights prior to that.  Either way I think I am in better shape now by the 40,000 miles.

When I applied for the card I received the dreaded ‘your application has been received and must be reviewed, we will provide an answer in 7-10 business days’ so today, rather than wait, I called in the Reconsideration Line.  I typically call in before they have actually told me that I am declined and today the call went something like this:

Saverocity – Hello, I recently applied for the US Airways Card from you, and I haven’t heard about how the application was proceeding.  Today on the news I noticed that there was a merger or acquisition regarding US Airways and as such I wanted to call in to see if that is impacting my application.

Credit Analyst Barclays -Certainly, please could you tell me some personal information so I can pull up your account

Saverocity– Sure

Credit Analyst Barclays – it seems that your application has been declined, would you mind answering some questions to see if I can change that?

Saverocity – Absolutely

Credit Analyst Barclays – Please can I confirm your employer and your position within the company?

Saverocity -Yes, the company is XYZ and I am the President.

Credit Analyst Barclays -OK, and your annual salary

Saverocity X

Credit Analyst Barclays–  OK great, please hold

20 seconds go by

Credit Analyst Barclays – It seems that you have excellent repayments and have never been late, but your credit history started in 2009, could you please explain that?

Saverocity – I am originally from the UK, and moved to the US in 2009, when I did I started to apply for US credit and have made every payment on time since then.

Credit Analyst Barclays – Ah that makes sense…please hold…

5 seconds…

Credit Analyst Barclays – Mr Saverocity, I am pleased to inform you that I have approved you for a credit line of $15,000 and the card will be with you in 7-10 business days.

Saverocity – Great thanks!

The reconsideration line for Barclays is 866-408-4064 and connects directly to an Analyst for a full list of Reconsideration Lines for the Card Issuer’s please check out this excellent post by Darius at Million Mile Secrets.