Originally Posted by number41

I finally received a phone call back from AAdvantage customer service after sending them an email a few weeks ago regarding the 5,000 EQMs (for every $20K in spend, up to 10,000 EQMs annually) from Barclays. A few things:

1) The 5,000 EQMs are only supposed to count for elite status. They not supposed to count for the 500-mile upgrade EQM counter.

2) AAdvantage recognizes that it's not clear AA.com or any of the Barclays terms regarding what the 5,000 EQMs from card spend should or should not count towards.

3) There will be a clarification from either AA or Barclays coming in the near future.

All that said, AAdvantage manually included the 5,000 EQMs in the counter for 500 mile upgrades which put me over the 10K mark for four more upgrades. Now lets see if I can actually use the upgrades!

So the bottom line is if you have EQMs from Barclays, contact AA customer service right away. Once the language is clarified, they won't honor the EQMs from card spend for anything except accruing elite status.