Barclays MasterCard/B&N Membership Card...

[Anonymous]

Hi Everyone,

My family and I shop at Barnes & Noble at least once a week. We finally broke down

and bought a Membership card for $25, but we noticed that an application for a MC

thru Barclays was included in the info packet.

Question: does B & N share our purchase history with Barclays in order to pre-qualify

folks for the Mastercard? In other words, is the B & N Membership card a sort of

"pseudo retail card" that's used to graduate select members to the MC?

I've already checked wgmc.com. Barclays appears to pull TransUnion exclusively

and approval FICO scores range from 632 to 731. The initial credit limits vary widely

from $500 (instantly) to $15,000 (manual review). But like I said, I'm mainly concerned

with finding out if Barclays uses payment history on the membership card to

pre-qualify folks for the MC.

Many thanks in advance for sharing your wisdom with me. Cheers!

"The right attitude is everything"

[haulingthescoreup]

Hi, CanDo, I'm the instant $500 approval! I didn't join the B&N membership deal until after I got the card, mainly because Borders is more handy.

That's an interesting question, but I don't know how Barclay's would factor it in. The membership card isn't a credit product, and so I don't see how it would report to Barclays, unless there's a special category indicating customer loyalty or something.

I don't know if there's another forum member with this card other than MidnightVoice (or his wife at any rate.) I think that NetPanther has it, but she hasn't been on for a good long while.

Hmmm, now I'm second-guessing myself! Sorry, this isn't an answer for you; more of a new question for me...

[MidnightVoice]

I don't think so

[Anonymous]

Hauling & MV,

Thanks for sharing the knowledge - greatly appreciated...;-)

I'm gonna be a little more patient before applying for the MC.

My last baddie on TransUnion falls off the end of this month.

My TU is 639 but it should pop quite a bit once I move up from

from the "baddie bucket" to the "thin file bucket". At the very

least, I should end up in the high 600's..maybe even reach

the 700 Club. My thinking is, with a score that high, why settle for

a $300-500 subprime CC now when I can jump all over a Barclays

CC in about 3 weeks? I'm happy to trade a little time now on the

front end for higher compensating balances down the road... 

That same line of thinking applies to NFCU. When that baddie

drops off my Equifax (647 now) my score should skyrocket.

I could probably get a CC now with NFCU, but I like to do things right

the first time, start with a clean slate and put myself in position for a

higher credit limit on Day 1...

Anyway, thanks again for your responses. Cheers!

"The right attitude is everything"

[Anonymous]

I was approved for this card in April 2007, my TU score was 597, I had five PAID CO, all defaulted student loans, two which had been transferred twice. At the time I had:

ACCOUNTS IN APRIL 2007
Macy's card (100cl),
American Eagle Card (100 cl),
Dillard's card (100 cl)
Children's Place card ($250 cl)
Wamu Platinum (1500 cl)
HSBC- (5000 cl)
Citi-AU (21,500 cl)

None of these accounts were ever late! But like I said I had 5 PAID Baddies.

My TU score was under 600 (597-thanks for tracking wamu). But I gave the rest of this info for other factoring.

The interest was insane, 21.24%. When I called to close it last month, they offered me 11.9%, but I have been pruning my accounts. Only keeping those I really use, blah, blah, blah.

Anyway I wanted to give you a picture of what it looked like when I applied.

[Anonymous]

Hi miahmarie,

Thanks for the snapshot. I really appreciate it.

I can clearly see the point you're trying to make, but 1 year ago

you had 7 never late accounts counteracting the effects of your

5 paid CO's. I'm sure that's why you were approved for the

B & N Barclays MC. And you're right - the APR is insane, but

the higher rate made it easier for you to be approved.

I just choose to be more conservative right now. I'm taking full advantage

of the information in this forum to make wise choices, and I only want

to establish credit with places I trust and feel comfortable like B & N,

Navy Federal and Bank of America. However, within the last year credit

standards have tightened considerably, so removing any/all negative

information from my credit reports beforehand will optimize my chances

for approval. That's why I'm waiting for the last of the baddies to fall off

before I move forward...

Thanks so much for taking time to respond to my post. Everyone here has been

very nice and I really appreciate it. Cheers!

"The right attitude is everything"

[Anonymous]

Way to Go CanDo! I think you are on the money. With no baddies and a score hike I am sure your opening limit will be great! You will enjoy the 5% credited back to your statement if you buy stuff from B&N. They even credit the 5% when you buy gift cards.

I am so proud of your patience! I am sure you will be posting great success in the future, I can't wait to hear about it!

[MidnightVoice]

We got a B&N card because (a)I wanted my DW to have another real TL of her own, and (b) we shop at B&N anyway and were members of the club.  This means quite a reduction in price overall.

DW had a TU of about 780 when we applied and we got the dreaded 7-10 days message.  Then when the card came she had a CL of $15K.

[Anonymous]

I just applied yesterday for this MC card and rec'd a 1500cl. My TU is around 650.

[haulingthescoreup]

Congrats, AttaGirl! I can see I have some work to do.

Seriously, though, the more I look at it, the better a deal this seems than the Borders Visa, because it's cash back and not points. So I'm going to do what I can to get a decent CL on it, and turn it into a keeper.

And even though there's a tiny J (for Juniper) logo on my browser window, and even though I know that Barclay's owns Juniper, I go to barclaycardus for my account access, not the Juniper site. I'm hoping that this card is Barclay's first step in offering a better line of cards in the U.S.

I sure haven't heard of any $15K CL's on standard Juniper cards!

edit: looks like it might not mean much of anything about being on the Barclay's site. When I log in at work (where my info isn't saved), I go through the main screen, and there's a message saying that this is the new site for Juniper cards. So who knows?

Message Edited by haulingthescoreup on 04-09-2008 07:07 AM