DjRocket

I see. Well, they did claw the points back, but only the amount that I earned by making the travel purchase. I don't sweat about it though, since it's not that much relative to the amount of points used to redeem the travel purchase. That kind of clawback is fair as far as i'm concerned.

madbrain

Had my Google wallet shutdown after 6 weeks, after cashing about $6000 of OneVanilla VGC from CVS and a few MGC from OfficeDepot with zero fee, including $4000 the week leading to the shutdown. Was nice while it lasted. My husband still has his Google wallet, but it takes 2 to play this game. Have not tried to open another google wallet. USPS still works fine for me. The postal employee I saw today is an MS'er herself, We exchanged tips about which stores still accept credit cards for buying GCs. LOL

madbrain

Similar thing happened to me with Barclay about a decade ago. I cashed 0%, no balance-transfer-fee on all my credit cards - about $150,000 worth. Put them in money market accounts earning 5% + . Those were the days !

Barclay did a review, found all my cards maxed out, and shut down all my cards. No other creditor even blinked.

I recently applied for the A+. They instantly denied me, without even checking my credit. I called recon and was approved for the A+. Already met minimum spend and cashed the 40,000 points (alas, not 50,000, missed that by a week).

I do have one card that's maxed out - $6000 Discover opened in august. 0% balance transfer offer, no fee. It caused my credit score to drop about 40 points. All the other cards get paid in full each month. I still have an excellent score, though (760-790 out of 850 depending on which bureau/scoring model). Hope Barclay doesn't shut me down a second time, though. Maybe I should pay down that Discover just a tiny bit more than the minimum - currently planning on paying it in full last month only.

Happy

Care to share how you recon it to be approved when the bank instantly denied you?

madbrain

I did the A+ application online on a tuesday, and got instant denial, with a message telling me a letter would come in the mail to explain the reasons.

I called recon the next day . CSR told me I was denied due to "unsatisfactory previous relationship" a long time ago. I requested she reconsider. She then pulled my credit, and I was instantly approved during the review over the phone, with a $20k credit line.

The denial letter arrived the following tuesday, and stated that credit was not pulled. I don't remember exactly the wording on it - not sure if I scanned and kept a copy, but for sure I shredded the original .

The actual card arrived one week after that. The day after, the 50,000 bonus offer was announced. No luck pleading by secure message to be upgraded to that .

My initial spending was a little over $3000, including about $500 of travel charges. The miles posted immediately after the purchase threshold was met, before the first statement closed. I redeemed the points instantly towards the travel purchase, again before first statement closed. I have never seen any other issuer post rewards so quickly - kudos to Barclay.

Chelski

At Mad.. just get a credit increase at D. No need to pay down if you can increase CL.

madbrain

Yes but that will be another credit pull, and they won't do it for at least 3 or 6 months of the account being open, I forget which.

According to the Amex site, my Experian FICO dropped from 849 out of 850 in April (almost perfect score - my Vantage score was 990 last year also ), to 767 now. Lots of inquiries and new accounts. And that one Discover account at 98% balance is probably responsible for half of the score drop. Waiting for Citigold bonus to post to withdraw some funds and pay down the Discover some more.

Happy

Thank you for sharing. So at Barclays a credit analyst could override the denial generated by the system on "unsatisfactory previous relationship". I suppose if there is no discharge or anything in that nature, after so much time has passed, it is fair for Barclays to judge your credit worthyness based on the current information, i.e. the fresh credit report. Kudo to them. Chase seems to be the only other bank that would reconsider after a couple years.

madbrain

Right, there was not anything negative on my credit report for the last decade (and the only time there ever was in my life, in the preceding decade, I ended up suing both a creditor and credit bureau over FDCPA violations which didn't end well for them).

I hope Barclay won't shut me down again. I expect my credit score will go back up after that Discover is paid down/off. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have bothered with the small $6k balance transfer, just had a hard time turning down free money given no BT fee, even though interest rates are very low right now.

DjRocket

Glad to see another confirmation that other creditors didn't care. Now it'd be interesting to find out why Barclay does it. Is it really because they're so much more risk intolerant than others, which I doubt, or is it because when they looked at out accounts they saw a whole bunch of MS? (do you buy GCs?)

Still curious what's the best way to cash out the reward points as you go, on the card like A+. Seems like with so much uncertainty, it wouldn't be wise to have too many points at any time. When Barclay shut me down, I lost points. Luckily only $15 worth. Buying refundable hotel rooms and then getting credit back sounds too risky to me if you do it much. How do you cash out, if you don't mind?

madbrain

When they shut me down a decade ago, I was not buying any GCs. I had 2 cards with Barclay. One with a 0% offer that I maxed out, and another that was a flat cashback card which I used for literally all my spending. I found out that Barclay shut me down when a charge was declined at Safeway paying for groceries. Ended up paying with a debit card that day. The shut down letter didn't arrive until a week later. No advance notice whatsoever.

I lost about $200 in cashback as I recall. I also suffered some fees with some autopay from utilities that were declined on the due date.

Even though they closed my accounts, the card that was maxed out still had the 0% offer, and I didn't pay it in full until a year later.

I actually pleaded my case with a banker at Barclay on the phone and explained what I have done with all the 0% balance transfers on all my cards, and that the money was still in FDIC accounts earning interest.

He could clearly see that there were no late payments on any account in my credit report. But I was deemed to risky for them. They wouldn't even keep my regular spending card open, which was getting paid in full each month. Guess they didn't care for the swipe fees.

I don't know exactly what Barclay is looking for these days in terms of shutdown, but a decade ago they were definitely much more risk intolerant than other creditors.

Even if you cash out, the issuers can always claw back points later and give you negative point balances, like Amex has been known to do to some people, so redeeming early may not necessarily save you.

On the A+, the way I cashed out was that I booked a $500 flight (one way ticket CDG-SGN on VN/AF) as part of my initial $3000 minimum spend. Points posted and I was able to redeem about $450 towards it. The amount on the first due bill is actually about $2600, less than the minimum spend, due to having cashed out before first statement closed. I may charge a little more on my A+ during the upcoming trip so I can redeem towards that flight in full - I still have some points to redeem, but below the minimum threshold for redemption.

DjRocket

@madbrain Great feedback, thank you for that. Does look like they care very much about those balances, good to know. When I applied later for their Frontier card, I got an instant denial, and then a letter saying that due to negative performance on my previous card (referring to A+), they can't approve this one, without even checking credit. I called the recon line and asked what "negative performance" they have in mind, because I paid off my A+ on time with no glitches in the history whatsoever. The rep said it's just wording. Negative performance can mean anything, as long as there are reasons to shut down an account. She did offer to pull credit and reconsider the application but I declined since I don't care about Frontier points that much and need to start working on reducing the 20+ inquiries in my credit report just this year lol

FlightNurse

Sorry to hear this, however, leaving a high balance on your CC doesn't shut you down, in fact the CC company likes that since they are now making money on you. Something else triggered them to close your account. It seems that some CC companies are more willing to close accounts then others.

littlewinglet

How were you paying down the charges? Some weird bill pay from WM, or through the A+ online account, asking to take it from your bank? I've done what you do a lot and no issues so far. I also don't care if it's shut down, as I was going to close it anyway. A+ is worthless to me without MS capability.

littlewinglet

Cash it out exactly as you just described. Nothing difficult about it, very straightforward method and scaleable.

The dangers might be in how you MS, not the volume. I heard some people used to load some prepaid cards like Buxx...or whatever is around these days, or doing rent/mortgage payments.