misterfahrenheit

Sweet, that makes me feel way better.

Thank you all for the advice and info! This is an awesome community. I look forward to reading and learning a lot more.

captaincool

I just want the OP to know that I have a similar credit profile as you and currrently hold 5 amex cards (4 personal, 1 biz)

I think they are more concerned with the stated income/total credit line ratio than the AAoA. Worst case scenario you have to go through a FR which is a pain, but as long as you don't lie on your apps you come out of them just fine in a month or so.

misterfahrenheit

What's FR mean?

Also, earlier someone said "Barclay's is a PIA"... what is PIA?

amolkold

FR = Financial Review, something amex does where your accounts are frozen for a bit and they ask for permission to see your IRS tax returns to see if you are a worthy cardholder. Many people get their accounts closed or severely reduced in terms of credit line.

PIA = Pain in the @$$ or Pakistan International Airlines. I'm guessing they mean the former.

robertw477

I never had anything severly reduced or closed after a FR. I only had one 1 in the past many years.

robertw477

PIA is a common term "Pain in ..." (the rear end of a donkey)

LOL
Rob

fevercity

Man... the more I read about Barclays, the less I want to ever do business w/ them.

Plus, I fly USAir and Frontier a lot. Those cards would come in handy.

Has anyone ever had a good Barclays experience?

onthego15

All of my experiences with Barclay's have been positive. I currently have three cards with them - USAir, Choice and Priceline. Points/miles/cashback all post promptly, they were proactive in getting me to move credit around when I applied for my third card, and I have had zero problems with them.

PresskittJon

It's like everything in life and much more magnified online: when people are happy they move along, when people get pissed they write all kinds of negative stuff and tell everyone.

The US Air card thread has nearly 1500 posts. Mostly positive and many of them touting the churnability of the card.

Just realize that Barclay's may be a bit of a hassle if you push them but in general they are just fine.

LETTERBOY

I find these reports about Barclay's worrisome as well, but I think we need to remember that when we are dealing with any large company (or even a medium-sized company), there are going to be people who rave about them, and people who will say they are the devil incarnate. I have had almost exclusively outstanding experiences with American Express, but there are people who hate them with a passion. I've had mostly good experience with Bank of America, but many people say bad things about them, too.

The OS

I would venture a guess that with us knowing that Barclay's is a bit more on the conservative side, that our experience (I'm 36 and have strong credit and history including previous mortgage) is possibly going to be different than that of a 23 year old, also likely with limited income. I know better than to completely dismiss the 23 year old though - my wife is 24, has excellent credit and a solid job just 2 years out of college, so it's entirely possible that the OP is plenty self sufficient, and just had a bad experience because of his aggression with the initial AOR.

I also have an online savings (pays 1% - highest savings account anywhere in the US) with Barclay's, so I plan to use that as leverage when churning the US Air card. It's all about strategy, in my mind, to get the upper hand with them.

sdsearch

Yes. But I don't app-o-rama like crazy (like the OP apparently does/did?). In other words, you shouldn't just take all reports of good or bad eperience equally without considering the specific factors.

The only "problem" I've had with Barclays is that they cancelled a couple of my cards due to inactivity, without warning, during the height of the financial crisis of a few years ago. But lots of credit card companies got temporarily panicky during the period. (And I haven't really missed those two cards anyway; I really had stopped using them. And they did let me apply for another card a year or two later, and gave me a good credit limit on it.)

But my experience has no bearing on Barclays if you want to use Barclays only for churning. (OTOH, several other banks are starting to possibly sometimes penalize "too aggressive" churning too, though maybe in different ways.) Each Barclays card I've signed up for I've only signed up for once. (It's Citi where I churn like a rabid dog; but then Citi is known for not caring much about that.)