I somewhat agree with this. I'm fairly sure I had Amex refused for insurance when I was working through the £10k for the BAPP voucher, though. In the end I got bored, ate up the fees, and used Bluechain or one of its predecessors to get it over with and the card put away.

The majority of small retailers here (N England) do *not* take Amex. The map of small businesses eligible for the current small business promotion via Amex is laughable locally.

The problem with this is that it's hassle, having to think each time I pay not just "is this business card or personal?" and "is this in sterling on barclays, forex on Wise or curve?" and "do I need s75 here?" but also "should I try Amex?".

The Barclays card (+ Curve) works EVERYWHERE. Wielding the Amex, even with Apple Pay, then having the transaction fail and the card machine have to be reset for another go, gets boring very quickly. A lot of shop staff *don't know* when asked whether they take Amex, which also causes delay.

Anyway, if Amex works for you, great - BAPP is the way forward; same cashback as Barclays and also the nice voucher every year. But I don't suggest it for the reasons above.

And then in the next sentence...

Hello! How did this turn out? Did you manage to get this resolved in the end? I am having exactly the same issue - I just cancelled my Amex and moved to this card to restart the counter, and it's caused me nothing but pain.

I get the card, try to activate it, need to use a PIN sentry which will take 10 working days to arrive. In the meantime, I cannot use the card for anything which might require secondary verification. Great! Finally, I get the pin sentry, successfully register on the app... and my card isn't anywhere in the app, and it just says I need to call. I can still use the card, and I can even spend online with codes sent to the app for verification. I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling/trying it on a different phone and no joy. I have never been a Barclaycard customer either.

I've tried calling customer services multiple times, and every time they're perplexed and have never heard of it happening before. They've said they've raised a ticket with IT and they said they'll get back to me in 48 hours. Needless to say, I haven't heard back so have raised a complaint and am frankly losing faith that it will ever be resolved!! I'm thinking I should still get my avios in the meantime, but no doubt I'll need to fight them for that too.

Update 08/01/24: It took about 2 weeks, but I now have access to the app. No idea if it was the IT ticket which fixed it, or if it just resolved itself in time, or whether the fact I registered a complaint helped at all... but I can confirm it's now fine. I'm not particularly impressed with the service so far at all - I've never had so much difficulty in getting set up. It is the only avios card which isn't the amex though, so I'll (grumpily) stick with the Barclaycard avios card until I'm eligible for an Amex bonus again.

Yes it can.
No. The open jaw distance needs to be less than the shorter of the outbound or inbound.
I.e. Out: 5000 miles, In 3000 miles, open jaw distance 1999 is OK. The reason it is called an open jaw is because it looks like the upper and lower part of a mouth and the 'open' part is where the food goes in. Your suggestion looks very much like a dislocated accident.

Advice wanted
 

I’m about £300 off triggering the reward with my Barclays card and I’m trying to decide which reward to take. I realise the 7,000 avios seems like a poor deal but the voucher is only a good deal if I use it.

We don’t fly that often. Long haul once a year usually. We have Amex cards also so we usually use our companion vouchers for holidays. We have booked a reward flight already for this summer to SEA and return through LAX in J. Am I right in thinking that IF reward availability came up in F for either of these flights we could apply the voucher to the booking and therefore not have to pay additional fees? Or does the voucher have to be applied at the time of booking? Also possibly can’t use it if I’ve used the 241?

apologies if this has been covered elsewhere.

You are mixing up discussions about the BC voucher and the Amex one. They are different and have different rules.
This is the barclaycard thread, but your main question seems to be about an Amex voucher booking.
A BC voucher cannot be mixed up in an F flight by any machinations either at time of booking or later.
An Amex voucher can.

thanks for the response - the question was about the BC one not Amex. Thanks for letting me know the BC one can’t be used in F as this really was my question as well as if I couldn’t use it at the same time as the Amex voucher.

Well blow me down! Somehow I have managed to spend £20k on the card within a year, which was not my plan at all. But have had quite a few large expenses on it from merchants who do not take Amex. Still a big surprise though.

The email from BC says I have the option of a voucher or 7000 Avios. Now, as highlighted above, I am very happy with the App. However I cannot for the life of me find the voucher nor the option to have the Avios instead on the App. Can someone please point me in the right direction please.:)

PS Having read through many (not all!) of the posts on this thread I am going for the Avios. Neither option is fantastic value, but we are unlikely to use the voucher. In addition, the effect of taking the Avios is that I am getting 1.35 Avios per £ spent, which is approaching what I get on my (whoops I mean ‘our’) BA Premium Amex card.

in the app it is - open your barclaycard -> view your avios -> explore bonus rewards
7000 Avios seems like poor value.
I'd suggest the voucher. A benefit over the Amex is that the card holder doesn't have to travel.

OK, found it now, thank you. :tu:

I also found that despite Barclays knowing my BAEC account number and successfully sending me Avios every month… the App made me re-link my account in order to see the voucher. :confused:

PS Just to add that though the card holder does not have to travel, I still cannot guarantee I will use it. So will probably go for the Avios, bird in the hand and all that. YMMV.

Barclaycard Avios Plus Card
 

I've been waiting to get a Barclaycard Avios Plus Card for a while now since I missed the 50K avios deal last year. Is there any talk of similar deals coming up on Barclaycard or other cards with high welcome bonus?
Barclaycard Avios Plus Card

I think the general conclusion to that question on here was that we might not see one anytime soon because it's at a loss to Barclays, but I've been wrong (many times) before...

Is the 4 "free" DragonPass vouchers still a benefit? I can't seem to find any reference to it now, and I'm still showing 0 passes well after my renewal date.

Wasn't that for having the premier banking account not the card?

You get them for having premier banking and the card. Not sure if they renew every year though, or if it's just a first year thing?
​​​​​​Otherwise you have to pay for them.

Barclay Avios plus card help
 

Hi, can anyone help with a query on my new Barclay Avios plus card. Received the card a week ago (to optimise the sign up bonus of 25k avios), I've had a few large purchases this week so have hit around 2k spending within the week. However, all week on the app when I've been trying to view avios, it's showing 'AV006 - Sorry this service isn't available right now -try again later'. All payments ive made are showing. I entered my BA exec number on registration, so don't think this is the problem. Any idea what could be wrong, or have I missed entering any information anywhere? Appreciate any help on this 🙂