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This is how you deal with Barclays

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Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: This is how you deal with Barclays


@bz386 wrote:

I was reading all the Barclays stories here over the past couple of months and shaking my head about how they handle accounts. I was firmly convinced that I will never have a Barclays credit card, especially since none of their cards are all that interesting to me.

 

In January Barclays started sending me preapprovals for their Arrival+ with the 50000 "miles" bonus. I'm fully invested in Chase UR points so the card itself is useless to me. But after thinking about it, I realized that the 50000 mile bonus is just a very generous $500 gift from Barclays that I will gladly accept. Here's the timeline:

 

1. Feb 4: Applied and approved with generous $15k SL.

2. Feb 10: Card arrives in the mail.

3. Feb 17: Charged $5k of my humungous tax bill to the card. Processing fee is 1.87%, so I'm still 0.13% ahead.

4. Feb 20: Charge posts. Both 50000 points bonus and 10000 points for the charge are available for redemption.

5. Feb 23: Bought a $600 Delta gift card.

6. Feb 25: Charge posts and is available for redemption. Redeem 60000 "miles" against $600 gift card charge. Boom.

 

I now have another 4200 "miles" (3000 for the 5% redemption bonus and 1200 for the $600 gift card charge). I can either charge another $400 and then redem the resulting 5000 miles for $25 statement credit or charge another $3000 and redeem the resulting 10000 "miles" for another $100 Delta gift card. I think I will just charge this month's rent which will give me enough miles to redeem for a $100 Delta gift card.

 

After that the card will be firmly in the sock drawer until either Barclays closes it due to inactivity or the $89 AF posts next year. If it survives until the AF, I will call to either get it waived or will downgrade to the no-fee Arrival or cancel outright.

 

This is the only way Barclays should be dealt with.

 


Right? LOL I am a little saddened that Barclays is the only bank that preapproves me anymore (except for that pesky 1-2-3 Kroger Rewards card from US Bank). They keep filling my mailbox with the Arrival + offers and just two weeks ago I was embarrassed, shocked, humiliated and disgusted to find an invitation to apply for The Gold Card.Smiley Surprised

Message 11 of 25
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: This is how you deal with Barclays

I have very little interest in getting one of their cards after reading about some of their decisions. But earlier today, for some reason, I was looking at their site. I saw a card with 40,000 for $500 spend. (I don't rembemer which card it was and don't feel like going to look.) I thought I could pay my cable and cell phone with that, collect the bonus, then sock drawer until annual fee, then dump.

 

But then I thought that I don't want to do business with them. But $400 for $500 spend is tempting.

Message 12 of 25
SouthJamaica
Mega Contributor

Re: This is how you deal with Barclays


@bz386 wrote:

I was reading all the Barclays stories here over the past couple of months and shaking my head about how they handle accounts. I was firmly convinced that I will never have a Barclays credit card, especially since none of their cards are all that interesting to me.

 

In January Barclays started sending me preapprovals for their Arrival+ with the 50000 "miles" bonus. I'm fully invested in Chase UR points so the card itself is useless to me. But after thinking about it, I realized that the 50000 mile bonus is just a very generous $500 gift from Barclays that I will gladly accept. Here's the timeline:

 

1. Feb 4: Applied and approved with generous $15k SL.

2. Feb 10: Card arrives in the mail.

3. Feb 17: Charged $5k of my humungous tax bill to the card. Processing fee is 1.87%, so I'm still 0.13% ahead.

4. Feb 20: Charge posts. Both 50000 points bonus and 10000 points for the charge are available for redemption.

5. Feb 23: Bought a $600 Delta gift card.

6. Feb 25: Charge posts and is available for redemption. Redeem 60000 "miles" against $600 gift card charge. Boom.

 

I now have another 4200 "miles" (3000 for the 5% redemption bonus and 1200 for the $600 gift card charge). I can either charge another $400 and then redem the resulting 5000 miles for $25 statement credit or charge another $3000 and redeem the resulting 10000 "miles" for another $100 Delta gift card. I think I will just charge this month's rent which will give me enough miles to redeem for a $100 Delta gift card.

 

After that the card will be firmly in the sock drawer until either Barclays closes it due to inactivity or the $89 AF posts next year. If it survives until the AF, I will call to either get it waived or will downgrade to the no-fee Arrival or cancel outright.

 

This is the only way Barclays should be dealt with.

 


Can you explain, for those of us not in the know, this Delta gift card thing?

 

I was unaware of such a thing, and unaware you could use such a thing to pay a credit card bill. How does that work?


Total revolving limits 741200 (620700 reporting) FICO 8: EQ 701 TU 704 EX 685

Message 13 of 25
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: This is how you deal with Barclays


@SouthJamaica wrote:

@bz386 wrote:

I was reading all the Barclays stories here over the past couple of months and shaking my head about how they handle accounts. I was firmly convinced that I will never have a Barclays credit card, especially since none of their cards are all that interesting to me.

 

In January Barclays started sending me preapprovals for their Arrival+ with the 50000 "miles" bonus. I'm fully invested in Chase UR points so the card itself is useless to me. But after thinking about it, I realized that the 50000 mile bonus is just a very generous $500 gift from Barclays that I will gladly accept. Here's the timeline:

 

1. Feb 4: Applied and approved with generous $15k SL.

2. Feb 10: Card arrives in the mail.

3. Feb 17: Charged $5k of my humungous tax bill to the card. Processing fee is 1.87%, so I'm still 0.13% ahead.

4. Feb 20: Charge posts. Both 50000 points bonus and 10000 points for the charge are available for redemption.

5. Feb 23: Bought a $600 Delta gift card.

6. Feb 25: Charge posts and is available for redemption. Redeem 60000 "miles" against $600 gift card charge. Boom.

 

I now have another 4200 "miles" (3000 for the 5% redemption bonus and 1200 for the $600 gift card charge). I can either charge another $400 and then redem the resulting 5000 miles for $25 statement credit or charge another $3000 and redeem the resulting 10000 "miles" for another $100 Delta gift card. I think I will just charge this month's rent which will give me enough miles to redeem for a $100 Delta gift card.

 

After that the card will be firmly in the sock drawer until either Barclays closes it due to inactivity or the $89 AF posts next year. If it survives until the AF, I will call to either get it waived or will downgrade to the no-fee Arrival or cancel outright.

 

This is the only way Barclays should be dealt with.

 


Can you explain, for those of us not in the know, this Delta gift card thing?

 

I was unaware of such a thing, and unaware you could use such a thing to pay a credit card bill. How does that work?


I think OP bought Delta Gift Card from Delta website and since it is coded as Travel, you can redeem miles as a cash back credit for this purchase within 120 days on your current statement and when you redeem, 5% redemption bonus miles are added.

Message 14 of 25
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: This is how you deal with Barclays


@SouthJamaica wrote:

@bz386 wrote:

I was reading all the Barclays stories here over the past couple of months and shaking my head about how they handle accounts. I was firmly convinced that I will never have a Barclays credit card, especially since none of their cards are all that interesting to me.

 

In January Barclays started sending me preapprovals for their Arrival+ with the 50000 "miles" bonus. I'm fully invested in Chase UR points so the card itself is useless to me. But after thinking about it, I realized that the 50000 mile bonus is just a very generous $500 gift from Barclays that I will gladly accept. Here's the timeline:

 

1. Feb 4: Applied and approved with generous $15k SL.

2. Feb 10: Card arrives in the mail.

3. Feb 17: Charged $5k of my humungous tax bill to the card. Processing fee is 1.87%, so I'm still 0.13% ahead.

4. Feb 20: Charge posts. Both 50000 points bonus and 10000 points for the charge are available for redemption.

5. Feb 23: Bought a $600 Delta gift card.

6. Feb 25: Charge posts and is available for redemption. Redeem 60000 "miles" against $600 gift card charge. Boom.

 

I now have another 4200 "miles" (3000 for the 5% redemption bonus and 1200 for the $600 gift card charge). I can either charge another $400 and then redem the resulting 5000 miles for $25 statement credit or charge another $3000 and redeem the resulting 10000 "miles" for another $100 Delta gift card. I think I will just charge this month's rent which will give me enough miles to redeem for a $100 Delta gift card.

 

After that the card will be firmly in the sock drawer until either Barclays closes it due to inactivity or the $89 AF posts next year. If it survives until the AF, I will call to either get it waived or will downgrade to the no-fee Arrival or cancel outright.

 

This is the only way Barclays should be dealt with.

 


Can you explain, for those of us not in the know, this Delta gift card thing?

 

I was unaware of such a thing, and unaware you could use such a thing to pay a credit card bill. How does that work?


I could be wrong but it sounds like the OP could redeem the miles on (which is really cash) on travel purchases...and the Delta gift card was considered one.

Message 15 of 25
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: This is how you deal with Barclays


@bz386 wrote:
Yeah I think people should generally avoid Barclays. Their rewards cards are really not competitive (other than the signup bonus) and they seem to be a pain to deal with according to what is being reported here.

They do have a couple of niche cards like the JetBlue card, but I'm not a fan of cobranded cards at all - they limitnyou to spending with that one brand, which is rarely worth it.

Co-branded cards are very much worth it if you travel a lot. That said, no other Barclays cards interest me.

Message 16 of 25
yfan
Valued Contributor

Re: This is how you deal with Barclays

I am still in the camp of, "If I don't like a bank (or their products), I won't do business with them." This "I showed them!" mentality (especially if you are doing this with multiple institutions) can feel good for a while, but it often has a way of coming back and biting us in the rear end. We have no idea, but Barclays might introduce a superior product in Q4 of this year, and they may decide they don't want to give it to you because you took their bonus and didn't use their other card. It could also be suddenly that your needs or habits change and another Barclays product starts looking good to you (or even this one, and Barclays decides to CLD you as soon as you find it useful down the line). Or hell, it might not have anything to do with Barclays. Next time you app for a new Chase card or a CLI with Chase, they may decide that with the $15K Barclays line, your total exposure to all lenders is just enough for their liking, and they don't want to extend a greater line to you.

 

Not saying any of these WILL happen, but it's not impossible. These types of euphoric reactions to an out-of-favor lender can often end less than well.

Message 17 of 25
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: This is how you deal with Barclays

Good job OP.  I'd use the card at least every 90 days, then close it before the fee.   If you sock drawer it for too long, it's far more likely to get CLD and I'm sure you'd rather close it at a higher limit.

Message 18 of 25
bz386
Frequent Contributor

Re: This is how you deal with Barclays


@SouthJamaica wrote:

Can you explain, for those of us not in the know, this Delta gift card thing?

 

I was unaware of such a thing, and unaware you could use such a thing to pay a credit card bill. How does that work?


The Delta gift card was just a vehicle to be able to create a travel charge at just the right amount. Let me explain.

 

The Arrival+ has very annoying reward redemption procedures. First of all, every $ you spend gives you 1 reward mile. My $5000 tax charge netted me 10000 miles. To get the 50000 mile signup bonus, you also have to spend a minimum of $3000, so this single charge satisfied that requirement and the net result of my single $5000 charge was 60000 "miles".

 

When redeeming the rewards, you have two options:

1. You can redeem for travel charges (flights, hotels, rental cars, etc.). Every mile can be redeemed for 1c. The minimum redemption is 10000 miles (= $100).

2. You can redeem for cash back or gift cards at 0.5c of value. The minimum redemption is 5000 miles (=$25).

 

As you can see, option #1 is no only one that makes sense, because with option #2 you loose half the value for an effective cash back of only 1%, while option #1 gives you 2% cash back.

 

The difficulty with option #1 is that it can only be used against travel related charges, that the minimum redemption is 10000 miles ($100) and that if you don't have enough miles to offset the entire charge you can only redeem in 2500 mile ($25) increments. Once a travel charge posts, you can "erase" it with rewards miles.

 

Where it gets even more annoying is that for every reward redemption, you get 5% of the rewards back. For example after redeeming my 60000 miles, I will get another 3000 miles for a future redemption. Of course because this is less than the minimal redemption amount (10000 miles for travel or 5000 for cash back), you now have to spend more so you have enough miles to redeem. This is Barclays method to try to force you to keep spending on the card, because you can never redeem all miles. The least amount of unredeemable miles you can get stuck with is 250, if you redeem 5000 miles for cash back (250 is 5% of 5000).

 

I purchased a Delta gift card because that codes as travel and you are able to select an abitrary $ amount between up to $1000. I chose $600 because this exactly matched the number of miles I had available to redeem. Once the charge posted, I redeemed the 60000 miles and "erased" the $600 gift card purchase. The net result is that I still owe $5000 for the original tax payment, but now have a $600 Delta gift card that I can apply to any future flights on Delta.

 

Delta gift cards are pretty flexible. You can redeem it against flights of any value. If the flight costs less than $600, I will pay $0 and the gift card will remain valid with whatever the residual value is. If the flight costs more than $600, then I pay the difference with any other payment method (i.e. my Amex Platinum or Chase CSR).

Message 19 of 25
bz386
Frequent Contributor

Re: This is how you deal with Barclays


@Anonymous wrote:

Good job OP.  I'd use the card at least every 90 days, then close it before the fee.   If you sock drawer it for too long, it's far more likely to get CLD and I'm sure you'd rather close it at a higher limit.


I really don't care if they CLD it at some point. Once the account is closed with zero balance, the CL doesn't matter at all. I have more credit than I will ever need on the cards I actually use on a daily basis.

Message 20 of 25
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