Chewie

So, I got two emails today from Barclays. First one had the subject line, "Thanks for upgrading to the silver card" and the second was "Start enjoying your upgraded benefits today". Both emails were identical in composition, here's what they stated:

Your account will be updated on 06/05/2015. At that time, you will be sent your new AAdvantage® Aviator™ Silver World Elite MasterCard®. You will also be able to start enjoying these new benefits1:
— 3X miles for every dollar spent on eligible US Airways® and American Airlines® purchases
— 2X miles for every dollar spent on select hotel and car rental purchases
— 1X miles for every dollar spent on purchases everywhere else MasterCard® is accepted

Within one week after your account is upgraded on 06/05/2015, you can begin enjoying the following additional benefits2:
— 5,000 Elite Qualifying Miles: Receive 5,000 EQMs for each $20,000 in annual purchases (10,000 maximum EQMs per year)
— Annual Companion Certificate: Earn an annual companion certificate good for up to two guests to travel with you on an American Airlines operated flight for $99 each (taxes and fees apply) after you spend $30,000 or more in purchases since your last account anniversary and maintain your cardmembership
— Global Entry Application Fee Credit: Pay for the $100 Global Entry application fee with your card and you'll automatically receive a $100 statement credit 2-3 weeks after your transaction. With this benefit, you can receive one $100 application fee credit once every five years.

My monthly (and my annual) billing cycle ended on 6/4/2015. It's worth noting that I did NOT see the 10,000 anniversary miles in my AA account, only those 2x miles earned on the red card.

jediwho

I have a Red and will try to upgrade to Silver soon. Question on 10K EQMs. I want to get bonus EQMs for 2016. How should I spread my spending? 19K this year and then 21K in the first half of next year? Are EQMs based on Calendar year spending or card year spending?

Scsweet

Based on the spectrum of posts on this board directly or indirectly answering this question I don't think that you will get an answer you can be confident in until people who have been upgraded to Silver begin to see EQM posted in their accounts and report their spend details (which should start happening soon). If this card behaves like the Citi Exec card then the EQM bonus will be tied to calendar year spend (and would make sense to me because EQM accumulation is calendar year based). If that is the case, spend this year would not count toward 2016 EQM accumulation.

nall

So you called the day before your annual cycle was up? Was it the first annual cycle? They only charged you the $89 AF, right? Was your offer just for 10,000 miles after one year, or did you have one with 10,000 bonus miles every year?

Chewie

I thought I had 10k/year. I called in the beginning of the week. I wasn't aware it was the end of my annual cycle, it was a coincidence (or maybe for Barclays it wasn't). I don't see the $89 on my transactions yet, but they did confirm that when it does hit this month, it will be $89 this year and $195 thereafter.

Huskiez

Just called and tried to upgrade from Red to Silver. My last statement included both the $89 annual fee (which I paid) and the 10K bonus miles which posted to my AA account.

Asked to speak to supervisor who was very friendly but informed me I am not eligible yet as they are doing the upgrade eligibility in waves (similar to how they sent out the new cards), and told me to try calling back in a few days. A little disappointed but she sounded optimistic.

Fuerza

Any recent upgrades from Red to Silver?

OC_Matt

Not sure what is going on. I just received the welcome email stating all Silver benefits start immediately 6/10. This contradicts what I was told on the call when they stated 7/5 would be the start of the Silver benefits on my account. Calling them now...

ZetaToplover

Called them in the Philippines, CSA stated "no problem with an upgrade", and a bunch of pre-written agreement stuff. Shortly thereafter the following e-mail arrived. Today, is my first day as a silver member, supposedly. There are a bunch of parts of this (like how you get billed for the card and when), but I'll deal with that when it happens.



Start using your upgraded benefits

Your new upgraded AAdvantage® Aviator™ Silver World Elite MasterCard® benefits are ready to go!
You will now begin earning1:

— 3X miles for every dollar spent on eligible US Airways® and American Airlines® purchases
— 2X miles for every dollar spent on select hotel and car rental purchases
— 1X miles for every dollar spent on purchases everywhere else MasterCard® is accepted

Within one week, you can begin enjoying the following additional benefits2:

— 5,000 Elite Qualifying Miles: Receive 5,000 EQMs for each $20,000 in annual purchases (10,000 maximum EQMs per year)
— Annual Companion Certificate: Earn an annual companion certificate good for up to two guests to travel with you on an American Airlines operated flight for $99 each (taxes and fees apply) after you spend $30,000 or more in purchases since your last account anniversary and maintain your cardmembership
— Global Entry Application Fee Credit: Pay for the $100 Global Entry application fee with your card and you'll automatically receive a $100 statement credit 2-3 weeks after your transaction. With this benefit, you can receive one $100 application fee credit once every five years.

Your new card will have the same account number and expiration date. Once you receive your new card, follow the simple activation instructions. We hope you enjoy your new, upgraded benefits!

RazorbackFan

So I have been calling Barclay’s about once every couple of days to ask for an upgrade. They always say no but have given many differing answers as to when and if I’ll ever get an offer. Yesterday my phone rang and caller ID showed a Wilmington, DE phone number. I answered expecting it to be a telemarketer. Instead it was a customer service manager from Barclay’s calling. She told me she had recently listened to the playback of one of my recent calls asking for the Silver upgrade. She said she wanted to apologize for being given incorrect information regarding the upgrade process. First she asked me if I had already received my Aviator Red card. I told her that I had received it several months ago. She responded that having already received your Aviator card was the first requirement for upgrading to Silver. She then looked to see when my next annual fee was due. Its not until February 2016. She told me that typically the offer was loaded into the system the next billing cycle after approaching 90 days from your annual fee being due. She then said that I had the 10,000 annual mileage bonus and that currently having that bonus prevented you from being upgraded to Silver. I told her I would rather have the EQM earning ability rather than the 10,000 miles every year. She basically apologized for the situation but basically said there was nothing she could do. She suggested that since I didn’t have an annual fee until next year that it wouldn’t cost me anything to keep the card until then and hopefully I would get the offer come next year. While I don’t like this answer, it is really too late for me to make the switch to Citi this year. Spending $40K between now and the end of the year is questionable for me. Fortunately this year is turning out to be a good travel year for me at work, so I don’t think I am going to need the EQM from the card to maintain my tier this year. So I think I am going to wait until February when the annual fee comes due again. If they won’t upgrade me to Silver by then I will go ahead and get the Citi card. I’m not very pleased being strung along by Barclays for a year, but fortunately it’s not going to cost me my status this year. So I’ll hang around a little bit longer in hopes of getting a card that earns me EQM at a much lower annual fee than the Citi product.

winsteven13

Plan on upgrading as soon as I receive my red card..

nall

Thanks for sharing. I have two cards with annual bonuses (one perpetual, one newer one supposedly just one year) and have been repeatedly denied both upgrades and downgrades, so this is interesting to hear. I've called several times and no one can give me anything more than


...And that includes Barclays's Social Media team.

I would wager there's probably a good overlap with people who got the annual bonus offers and the kind of people who would actually care about the Silver offer, so it seems like an odd oversight. The question is how to bring attention to it.

phxbarcelona

Called today and upgraded. Still bummed that the 32K in spending I already did this year does not count

worldspan

Thanks so much for sharing the above! Extremely valuable info that heretofore has not been conveyed by anyone else on this board to my knowledge.

Chewie

It does count...