Can’t link to Avios account?

[Bluebirdnick]

Trying to jump through the hoops now for my wife.

– She had the Avios Premier CC accepted yesterday, email with credit limit etc received.
– Opened a premier account as a new Barclays customer this evening, surprisingly unproblematic. It’s open and visible in the app
– The credit card is NOT in the app. We have NOT downloaded/used the Barclaycard app – plan is to do it all via the Barclays app.
– For reasons I don’t understand my wife does not have an option to chat with customer service. I do in my app, she doesn’t in hers. On my app I messaged them to combine my CC and current accounts in the app and they did it quickly, so wanted to do the same for her. Her only option is to call the helpline which is (laughably) open only 9am-5pm.
– We have tried multiple times to apply for Barclays Avios Rewards but it can’t seem to link the accounts. We get as far as getting to the BA login page but it just doesn’t seem to accept it.

Any idea how I get past this issue with linking the accounts; and do we need to do it by close of play tomorrow?

And do I need the customer IDs for the credit card and the current account to be merged by tomorrow? We can clearly demonstrate that my wife applied for and opened both CC and current accounts before the deadline.

I also believe that the practical advice is to find an account to switch to Barclays at some point soon. I can’t see it in the T&Cs but there seems to be some ambiguity as to Barclays’ view on this and rather than pick the fight it is probably better just to find an old account to switch in. Is that right? And if we can’t find one, can we just open a basic bank account somewhere and switch that in immediately?

Any guidance welcome! Thanks

[Gary_Dexter]

If she has an Avios Plus card, contact the dedicated Avios Plus support number. It’s 24/7 and usually armed by UK based reps.

[Bluebirdnick]

Ah OK thanks.

I think the problem with linking the Avios account to the barclays app is that there are different email addresses for them.

No problem, I thought. In the app when you go to register for BArclays Avios Rewards, you get the chance to change your email. so you type in the revised email address but the keypad covers up the “submit” button. Oh Barclays…..

[Gary_Dexter]

Yeah different emails probably means different accounts.

Their IT systems are something to be desired.

[Bluebirdnick]

OK – so we changed the email address BAEC to match that in the barclays app. They still can’t link the the accounts. Any suggestions? It worked fine for me to link them on my side last night.

[Bluebirdnick]

Tried again this morning and it linked fine. Very odd! Just need to merge her credit card ID and her current account ID now, but I’m less concerned about doing that by close of play today as we’ve now jumped through all of the hops I think we needed to jump through by the end of this month ie she now holds a premier account, an avios plus cc and she’s registered for rewards saver. We will do an account switch and we will merge her customer IDs, but unless I’m mistaken there is no rush to do that. Phew!

One thing I will say for Barclays: all of the CS people weve spoken to have been great. On chat, twitter, and the phone.

[Dave1234]

I spoke to someone on the premier phone line and they said you can merge your accounts later and as long as all the other requirements are met, you’ll get the 100k

[Bluebirdnick]

….. Whereas the twitter team has said that you strictly need to merge them today to qualify, but they will ask for dispensation from the promotion team in this regard given the customer has no control over the speed at which customer IDs can be merged (nor why they were set up as separate IDs in the first place).

[RebeccaLondon]

I was told it was meant to be all done by yesterday but they’d put multiple notes in my record that the reason there may be a further delay was due to their IT issues.
They did manage to pull it altogether at the last minute though. Nearly the whole of November it took…. Glad I didn’t wait until the last minute.
My Id’s were set up with identical details and identical emails so not sure why it took them four weeks. You would have thought, that they’d have picked that another ID existed in the process rather than creating another one. Apparently not.

[Dave1234]

Bluebirdnick wrote:

….. Whereas the twitter team has said that you strictly need to merge them today to qualify, but they will ask for dispensation from the promotion team in this regard given the customer has no control over the speed at which customer IDs can be merged (nor why they were set up as separate IDs in the first place).

The phone agent on the premier line I spoke to, put me on hold to speak to the avios team and didn’t seem to think it would be a problem at all. I don’t see why their IT failings should punish the customer.

[Dave1234]

My solution is to go to the branch next week and then call them back. If they don’t want to give me the avios i’ll close my accounts so no bother either way

[Bluebirdnick]

The phone agent on the premier line I spoke to, put me on hold to speak to the avios team and didn’t seem to think it would be a problem at all. I don’t see why their IT failings should punish the customer.

I think I’m saying the same thing. The twitter team said strictly you have to have both products on the same customer ID by COP 30 Nov to qualify; but if we can see you’ve tried to merge them in time they would ask the Promotions team to be lenient and allow it in the same way as they are with customers who have to go into branch to finalise the opening of their accounts.

I’ve been really really impressed with the twitter team. I messaged them from my twitter account asking them to deal with my wife’s registration issues. They asked for her number which I gave; they called her to get approval to merge her accounts and as far as we are aware they did it (or at least started that process) and so I think everything is now fine. Really responsive.

I also received my email saying I have qualified for the deal today. My wife hasn’t yet, but she’s about 24 hours behind me in the process.

[Dave1234]

I’ll let you know on here how it goes!