Reply To: Barclays Avios Credit Card New Account thread

[JDB]

Racingwhitefire wrote:

So I have a Barclays premier account and have done for 12 years, I in fact applied for the barclays avios about a month ago through the app and got rejected, even though I have a near perfect credit history, interestingly I thought I would try again the other day once the 100K offer was up and was told as well that I would get a response in 5 days, I am finding it very strange the barclaycard would want to reject so many people clearly offering such a good deal because they need the customers, has anyone else found this who has always been good with credit?

There have been extensive reports of people with good credit being refused, most commonly it seems because they have a number of cards with fairly big limits. I don’t think your suggestion that Barclays is clearly offering such a good deal because they need the customers is remotely right. They are trying to reposition themselves. Barclaycard is by a country mile the country’s biggest credit card provider but it principally operates at the lower end (compared to say Amex or HSBC) and it is offering large incentives to attract more affluent clients and cross sell products. For shareholders, it is reassuring to see that the acceptance rate for the card retains some underwriting discipline as a tsunami of bad debts is not far off.