Barclay Arrival denied because too low utilization on existing Barclay reward card

[longtimelurker]

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@lg8302ch wrote:

uups.... I am curious what will happen to me then when I try to apply for the Sallie Mae end of May.  My Arrival gets only 10% util every month...I might get the same answer from Barclays as I have no intention to use up 10K ...income does not warrant such charges

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Well, it's hard to know exactly what to make of this.   The official letter just says that OP has sufficient credit exposure with Barclays, and doesn't refer to lack of utilization (which may or may not really play into their decision.)   So it may only be a problem if Barclays decides that 10K is enough for you, so I agree, no good reason to rack up uneeded charges on the chance that this will impact a Sallie Mae decision.

[Rookies1000]

At least you are using 10% of it. I was told there is no reason to cancel no AF cards when you can just SD it. I put something like $9,99 subscription on it. But that's about it.

Chase is very good at moving your CL around. Barclay didn't bulge when I offered to close the rewards card to get the arrival.

[emptypockets]

Barclays doesn't really like to give more than one card to people. Based on this info:http://www.barclaycardring.com/t5/Barclaycard-Ring-Public-Blog/A-Case-Study-of-a-Credit-Line-Increas...

Only 2-3 % of their cardholders have 2 or more accounts with Barclay (according to their own blog). Usually when you app for a new card and are anexisting cardholder you get the 7-10 day notice (which prompts you to call in for a re-con if you are a MyFico member).

This happened to me (I had a US Air and a Rewards MC, and apped for the NFL card). They told me they manually review requests for credit by existing cardholders. Bottom line, if you are not using the card with them that you have they seem to not want to give you more. Barclays seems to like a certain amount of usage before granting new/additional credit.

This is not a utilization issue in the traditional sense, this is a issue of not using the card at all and they don't seem to like that. However, as with all things, if you don't like how they do things it is best to move on.