Here's a bit of background:
I've had a Barclay's AA Red Mastercard since 11/2018. Inital CL $2,000. Requested CLI after a few months, bumped to $8,500. Upgraded to Silver card (at double the annual fee but some increased benefits) as soon as the option was available to me. Waited another year, requested and received CLI to $20,000 -- each required a single hard pull to TU.
Charged up a storm on this card and always paid in-full, before due date. Never late.
Several month's ago, they offered a credit sale: <4% interest on new balances. Took advantage of this and ran-up about $12K in charges, (rent, household expenses -- nothing extravagant or unnecessary) -- paid it all off before the end of the promotion.
That takes us to today. Have new charges of about $2K on the card. Checked TU FICO 8 score today: 740. Higher on the other bureaus.
Requested CLI. Spoke to a rep. on the phone and went through entire process, including agreeing to a hard pull. Requested a $10K increase. Received a system-generated $3,500 increase. Asked for recon. Was directed to a very officious credit analyst, who insisted that they needed to do ANOTHER HP to process the reconsideration (never heard of this). After protracted negotiation (and she refused to offer a non-binding opition as to the likelihood of getting an approval), she finally agreed to take the second HP from Experian (which had no HPs on the file) and a FICO 8 of 746. She interrogated me at great length, about why I was making the request, income, details of my credit history, etc. Then put me on-hold for 20 minutes. Came back with more questions then placed me on-hold for 15 more minutes.
The upshot after all of this: despite a stellar payment history, reasonable credit scores from two bureaus, more than sufficient income and virtually no debt at all, I was denied. Her explanation: I also have a business card with Barclays (a big $ 5K CL which is and always has been in good standing).
Soooooo..... customer beware!
Barclays at one time seemed like a not unreasonable place from which to secure a credit card. Were it not for the AA points I accrue from purchases (and given just how bad this airline has become) I may reconsider my future relationship with them. Scratch that -- I will definitely reconsider doing business with Barclays. Two hard-pulls for a measly $3.5 CLI is totally unacceptable.
Barclays -- if anyone from your bank is reading this, I'd appreciate at least the courtesy of removing one of the hard-pulls from my credit report -- you can private message me and I'll happily provide details. (I can dream, can't I....)
