@zerofirewrote:The thing that is wrong is right there in the name. Barclaycard is run by Barclays who is the worlds most uptight banker. Try to get any card before them and you probably will get denied. Try to spree with them as one of the cards and you probably will get your new account limit decreased or closed, usually decreased. They do not like to share you with anyone else if they have a say in it.
I wonder if a lot of Barclays' quirks can simply be chalked down to it being a British bank, and the Brits
a) just aren't that crazy about credit, and
b) treat credit very differently compared to Americans
I think this article provides some excellent insight: http://uk.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/uk-britain-credit-debit-card-statistics-international.php
@SouthJamaicawrote:
@red259Over the last ten years debit card holding has increased by 45% while the number of credit and charge cards has declined by 14%. In contrast, the ATM-only card portfolio has halved to 11 million, mainly driven by the closure of dormant accounts and upgrades to debit cards.
While debit card holding has considerably grown over the last decade, credit card holding has been largely static. Around 51 million adults in the UK (96% of the population) have a debit card.
Around 32 million adults (60% of the population) have a credit card. Full-time employees are much more likely to hold both debit and credit cards than other groups. This is also true for those in higher income brackets compared to lower income brackets. Future cardholding growth is expected to be largely driven by population growth.
...
Around 80% of credit card spending is attributable to full payers, who in turn account for around 56% of the credit card holding population.
While credit card spending increased by £3.9 billion during 2016, borrowings increased by £3.2 billion. This gap highlights the fact that most spending was driven by full payers using their cards as a means of payment rather than for borrowing.
In 2016 on average a UK adult made four credit card payments each month and 18 debit card payments each month.
This seems to explain a lot about the AA we hear so often from Barclays. It seems a large majority of the AA stories have a few things in common:
a) BT (even if promoted by Barclays themselves)
b) carrying a balance instead of PIF
c) app sprees
which if going by that article would sound like completely alien (read: risky) behavior to the Brits.
On my second one now however they have tightened up as of late and are both inquiry and new account sensitive.
@Anonymouswrote:
@red259 wrote:
I was just approved for the CITI AA Card which is 65000 points with 4k spend in 4 months. (If the card ever gets here). Soon as I hit 6 months since my Barclay Arrrival + account opening I am going to get the Barclay AA card and get the 50k points. The combined cards should net me two round trip tickets to Europe at a cost of 95 dollars.
The test bookings I have done, with AA cards to Europe route through LHR, which to my understanding adds significant fuel surcharges for the ticket. There may be a way around it, but with British Airways as the preferred carrier for both American and Alaska Air, those fuel surcharges lower the value of the points, on those routes.
