I pulled the trigger on this as well. But my experience wasn't as good as yours, probably because I tried not to use my mobile phone.
I was accepted straight away but given the £200 limit because the only way to upload your documents is to have put your mobile phone number in as part of the application. They then text you a code to upload your docs. No phone number, no upload, so a trip to my local branch...
Luckily my local Barclays branch is still open for another month or two, so I popped in with my docs (after visitiing a print shop as I don't own a printer).
The clerk there said she has scanned my documents and uploaded them to my application. But then nothing happened, so a week later I rang Barclaycard to find out what was going on.
The first guy I rang (on the Barclatcard line) didn't understand what I was talking about and said he would have to pass me to someone else who understood Barclaycards... The next lady didn't know what to do either. Her useful suggestion was to email
[email protected]. So I bit the bullet and asked her if she could link my mobile phone number to the account. She did.
After the call I tried to upload my docs via the web link, and I emailed new applications The upload appeared to work, but crapped out at the last stage. The lady on the phone had said to wait a day, but I thought I'd give it a go anyway. When I tried again the next day it worked fine, and a couple of days later (by now two weeks after I got my card) I got a sensible credit limit.
Just after I got my credit limit raised I got a reply from new applications who told me that they just deal with business cards so they couldn't help.
So after a lot of wasted time and effort I eventually got there. If I had known the hassle it would cause I would have just put my mobile phone number in at the first step.
After getting this up and running it appears there isn't really any way to use this card without a mobile phone anyway. Many things like verification, avios checking, etc mandate the use of the Barclays app on the phone and can't be done online via a PC. They should probably make that clear at the beginning.
There were several times when I thought about telling them to stuff their card, but I want the 50k avios and as a solo traveller I should be able to make better use of the upgrade voucher than the Amex 241. Mastercard is also more widely accepted than Amex which will also mean that I can put more spend on this card. So I persevered. Hopefully in a couple of weeks time when I have recieved my Sentinel box and verify the app on the phone things should settle down and it becomes a useful card...