I just called and said I'm thinking of cancelling since my Aviator Red's AF posted this month. The agent sent me straight to retention, who offered to waive the fee. When I asked about any spending bonuses, he said there were none available since the fee was waived (in hindsight I should have asked what bonuses were available if I paid the fee), but he could offer me an upgrade to the Silver card, also w/o an AF.

I have the Silver upgrade offer in my online account, but I passed on the $195 fee. For me, the GE credit is basically useless, since the whole family just got it earlier this year via other card. But, EQMs for free for a year? I'll give the card a try

 

If you're spending that much, you could probably more than make back the annual fee via the 3x miles on AA/US, 2x miles on hotels/rentals, and the companion pass at $30k spend. Just sayin'.

 

Do we know of anyone who has the 10K bonus who has been able to upgrade?

I have it, and have yet to receive an offer.

My wife, who received her Aviator Red a couple of months after me, shortly there after receive an upgrade offer. She did not have the 10K annual bonus.

Seriously annoying because the 10K EQM would be nice.

 

As I mentioned a page or so back, I have the offer both online and in the mailer but have not attempted the actual upgrade just yet on my 10k bonus card. I will likely be going through with it in January purely for the 10k eqm, so will update then.

 

Yours seems to be the only example of this I can find anywhere on the internet or blogs, so it really would be interesting to know what about your account is different from the other 10ks to make it so you are eligible. I guess there's no real way to know, but it's a shame we can't isolate it, because the consistent story from Barclays seems to be they can't upgrade the 10k yearly cards.

 

I thought the only success was someone in their first year who hasn't already received the annual bonus.

 

What's the annual bonus on the red card?
I just logged onto my online account and noticed I had the option to upgrade to the silver. Does anyone who has upgraded know if the upgrade creates another hard inquiry into your account? Thanks! I still don't have global entry so this will be useful

 

Some people have the 10k annual bonus on the red card. That seems to be the problem with getting the Silver card. I do not believe it is a hard pull to go from Red to Silver.

 

I did not get a hard pull when accepting the upgrade to Silver offer online back in July. I accepted it after getting my redcard AF waived in June.

I just got a notice by mail about my annual fee being charged October, 30. I thought I would have until June 2016, but it looks like I need to apply for GE now and then cancel the card before the AF.

 

My wife has the offer and the 10k bonus. I don't have the offer but have the 10k bonus. Maddening.

 

Like viag8 above, I got my annual fee waived in June or July on the Red card. Accepted an upgrade via the website to the Silver card in August, and now they want to charge me an annual fee on October 30. Any data points on people calling in to get the annual fee waived on the Silver card yet?

Edit: Just called in and got the fee waived until October of 2016. Thanks Barclays!

 

Considering this upgrade to silver have the opportunity to do so now online. Doing so now, would my spending basically go back to zero 1/1/2016 towards EQMs? I currently do not have AA status, not even close on miles, going away from Delta to AA given where and how I now fly. Just wondering if my timing is off doing now vs. next year. My anniversary date with the red aviator is mid Feb. Should I wait until Jan to upgrade? My plan is to spend the min amount on the AAdvantage exec card to get the 10K EQMs and then the silver aviator to 40K to get the 10K EQMs. With paid flights should be able to get status then. Also like the companion ticket as that alone will pay 2x the annual fee. Also I believe only get 2x on the exec card on airline purchases vs. 3x on this?

 

My wife had two of the Barclays US MC's. Both were converted to the red card. She was able to upgrade one to the Silver and has hit the 40k in spending to get all of the benefits. She has tried, twice now, to upgrade the second one to Silver. Without getting into the why part, it is of interest to her in doing so. On both calls, she was told that there was 'no offer' available at this time. She can easily spend $80-100k per year across two cards. She wants to segregate some expenses from others. She's a long-time Barclays customer. She pays in full. The Silver comes at a higher fee vs. the red.

The red currently has a fairly low credit line. We move credit back and forth between her cards. I don't know if the low credit limit has anything to do with their denial.

I had her call today and ask to speak w/ a supervisor in the US. She did, and we think they kept her call in India. Not a nationality based thing, just a 'who makes the decisions' thing. My past experience is that a different answer is sometimes received when you get US based customer service.

FWIW, I have three of the AA Barclays cards, and upgraded two of them from red to silver. I haven't tried on the third as of yet.​

If we cannot upgrade her second from red to silver, we'll close out the red. They make money off of her on the spending without a doubt.

I don't understand why they will not allow her to upgrade from the red to the silver.

Anyone have any insight into how / when / why Barclays allows an upgrade to silver from red? Anyone have ideas on how to get a different answer than the one we've received so far?

 

Does she have the card with the annual 10,000 miles bonus? Last time I checked, most cards with that are not eligible for upgrade to silver.

 

Honestly, that I do not know but I believe that she does not. I'll go back through mileage postings to see if I can figure that out.