I finally called Barclays about the automatic rejection of existing BOA card holders applying for the US Mastercard. They told me that this is not the bank's policy. It was recently dictated to them by our good friends, US Airways. US has told Barclays to reject applications from all existing US DM credit card holders. If, as we are pretty certain, the BOA Visa goes away early 2009 (leaving me and others with no US affinity card), is this not just one more dumb decision by US that will alienate good customers? Rather than let us apply now and get the new card up and running for 2009 before the BOA card goes poof (thus keeping us affiliated with US), they want us to wait until we have no US affinity card before permitting us to get a new one. Maybe then I won't bother.
If I don't have the benefit of getting 10,000 EQM from credit card use in 2009, it kind of opens up more options of where and how I might want to spend my travel dollars. US is a truly a strangely run operation. Why do I feel LCC will be a case study of bad management in MBA programs some years down the line?