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Havings points problems with your Priority Club or Hilton credit card?

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Last Autumn I applied for the Priority Club Black credit card in my wifes name. Barclays was offering 40,000 Priority Club points and a full fee refund at the time, so it was a no-brainer.

The card arrived OK, the £99 annual fee was charged and refunded OK, and my wifes Priority Club account was upgraded to Platinum (one of perks of the card).

However, we never got any points to post. The first statement, which including the 40,000 bonus points, was dated 17th October. Despite various e-mails to Barclays via the credit card website, nothing happened.

Just when I was beginning to lose patience, I found this e-mail address on Flyertalk – wr [at] barclaycard.co.uk

The poster said these guys are amazing. And they were. Within 2 days we had a phone call saying that the problem would be fixed, and another 2 days later the 40,000+ points were in her account.

(As an added bonus, because they have fallen into 2013 and not 2012, they count towards her Platinum renewal for next year. If I can get another 20,000 points during the year, we can cancel the card and not pay the £99 renewal fee, because we won’t need it to keep her Platinum for 2014.)

So … if you have the Hilton or Priority Club credit cards and you are having trouble with points (missing sign-up bonuses, missing bonus points for hotel stays, missing free night vouchers etc), then contacting the e-mail address above is the way to go. (WR stands for ‘web relations’, by the way, it is not the private e-mail of a person with the initials WR!)

I am certainly more confident about recommending these cards, as I have been, now that I know there is a way of getting problems sorted.


Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2024 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current sign-up bonuses.

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

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Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

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The Platinum Card from American Express

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Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending.

Barclaycard Select Cashback Business Credit Card

1% cashback uncapped* on all your business spending (T&C apply) Read our full review

Comments (10)

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  • Alan says:

    I think I was one of the original folk to post this on FT nine months or so ago – I found the email address after Tweeting Barclaycard – they said to email the WR address. Agree they’re very helpful – I also ended up with quite a bit in cash compensation for points being incredibly slow to post 😛 Just churned the HHonors VISA so will be interesting to see if things working any better now. (I doubt it!)

    • Raffles says:

      What gap did you leave between Hilton applications?

      • pazza2000 says:

        I am interested in the answer to this also. Without knowing, I plan on leaving at least a year between applications.

        • Alan says:

          @Raffles/pazza2000 – I’ve checked back and my last transaction on my previous Hilton card was May 2012. I tried to apply a couple of months ago but was rejected – however I had been rejected a couple of time previously the first time around anyway so I think that might just be the vagaries of the Hilton/Barclaycard approvals process! I think they said I’d need to wait six months when I closed it, although that might have been my PC VISA – given both are run by Barclaycard it may well be the same rules. Anyway this time it looks like I’ve ended up leaving 7-8 months between cards.

  • pauldb says:

    How long should the points take to reach PC? My first statement (Feb10th) shows the 40k but no points are in my PC account.

    I applied though the 40k link you gave last month. Was the fee refund a temporary/different offer as I don’t recall that (and haven’t received it. And Platinum status – I haven’t got that on my account but didn’t know it was a benefit – you seem to describe it as a regular benefit of the card?

    • Raffles says:

      Paul,

      Platinum status is now part of the package, yes. But as you’ve had no points yet it is not surprising you haven’t had that either.

      Give it another fortnight to give them a chance of posting automatically. If they still don’t appear, email the WR address with all your details and they should fix it.

      The fee refund was a separate, earlier offer, unfortunately. You won’t get that!

  • Jody says:

    Thats interesting, thanks Raffles. My inlaws took out a card about 18 months ago for (I think) a 20,000 sign up. They gave my priority club number, and we phoned to check this was ok. The points have never ever been issued to them or me despite numerous calls, and they gave up in the end. Do you think this is still worth persuing?

  • csutter says:

    Agree, the WR team are amazing. I was once unable to log in to my Barclaycard account and lost all will to live after talking to 10 different people at some offshore call centre – tweeted Barclaycard, they told me to email WR and the problem was fixed in a matter of hours – and I even got a goodwill credit of £30 to my account!

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