In my post about earning miles by referring your friends to the Barclaycard US Airways card, I point out that Barclaycard has been making an offer of 50,000 miles plus 10,000 miles at card renewal available, marketed to US Airways elite frequent flyers.
Many consider the 10,000 mile offer at renewal ‘better’ but as I point out it’s the same as the regular 50,000 mile signup bonus unless you plan to keep the card for a year (and likely pay a second annual fee). Now, I do consider 10,000 miles worth $89 (9/10ths of a cent per mile) but many have long disagreed with me about hanging onto the card for that.
But is Barclaycard cracking down on non-US Airways elites signing up for the offer?
Commenter tassojunior shares this experience:
I used the Preferred link and got denied in 1 second. Phoned Recon and csr said since Dec. 1 Preferred DM #’s are programmed in Barclaycard’s computers and immediately reject non-elites. Follow-up rejection letter said the same and many people on every blog are also getting denials for this reason.
Although no credit check is run, you’re barred from any more Barclaycard apps, even the non-Preferred US one, for 30 days.
For years there have been ‘better’ offers for the US Airways card marketed at elites, or even top tier elites. And that’s always just been a marketing focus, not an exclusion for other members from signing up for the offer.
- You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
I dunno. I got the card w/o issue, to include the later 10K. And I’m not elite at all, never flown them that I can recall.
Okay, so what is reconsideration phone number. As there was none, on the rejection letter, I received in the mail. I have another Barclays card with no balance, no annual fee either, and I thought I would be easily approved for this. Now, I know why….
Just was approved on Friday using this offer. Have been a DM member for many months, but have never earned a mile.
Nope. My wife was approved with that link last week and she has no status
I had the exact experience as tassojunior… Except I have Gold status!
Got denied. Called in and was told it was because I don’t have status. I told the rep I did and he said it must have been some other reason but my credit wasn’t pulled. I then got the same letter in the mail as mentioned in your post. Very strange.
Either way it looks they are at least sometimes attempting to enforce the requirement.
I signed up for the 50,000 + 10,000 offer left in the comments a couple weeks ago – was approved after 2 days. I guess I won’t know if I get my 10,000 until next year though. I’ve had DM number for a couple years but never the Barclaycard or elite status.
Umm…got the card around Dec 10 for me, and also the next day for my wife. Neither of us are elites.
I got the card with the 10,000 annual bonus and I am not elite. They did do a hard pull on my credit, however.
If you were approved for the card with 10k bonus, you will get the 10k bonus or certainly should.