What a total shambles! Very grateful to the other posters here though as it's saved me bothering calling to chase up. The worst bit is them saying the card fee and 3 month countdown will start from when they approved the application rather than when it is actually activated - if this was only a couple of days apart then no problem, but not when it's weeks. The number of emails being sent by them is laughably high, at this rate they'll start being automatically flagged as spam!

On a related Barclays note I see the Rewards section of my Prem account is showing that I've now met the 12 month mark for the voucher but they've not actually notified me of this - the page also still shows as not being linked to my BAEC account with no balance update since October (despite trying relinking). Barclays and BA IT - they're clearly a match made in heaven

PS yet another 2 emails just now - one to activate my non-existent card, the other a bit more useful as it provides the personalised free Apple services signup link (although they recommend using your Barclaycard when signing up it looks like it isn't a requirement). It appears you can sign up to different ones at different times, full FAQs at https://www.barclaycard.co.uk/person...mer/apple-faqs