Last year, I had applied for a US Airways DividendMiles MasterCard with a 30,000 mile bonus, 10,000 mile anniversary bonus and a $99 companion pass, all for an $89 annual fee. Requiring only one purchase to trigger the bonus miles, I had the miles in my account within a matter of days, and have since had those transferred to my American Airlines AAdvantage account with the merger. I ended up using the companion pass with some friends to Disney World, so, for having the annual fee on the card waived the first year, I’d consider this a pretty stellar offer.
A week or so ago, a working link to a 50,000 mile offer was available on FlyerTalk and some other blogs, and, since the card is scheduled to disappear within the next few weeks, decided to take the risk in applying for a second one, hoping to receive an additional 50,000 bonus miles. Those links, FYI, are no longer working, just in case you are wondering.
It looks like there was one concise rumor floating around – if you were instantly approved online, you’d receive the card and be eligible for the bonus. If you were not instantly approved, and had to call in, you would be out of luck. I decided to take the gamble to see what happened, and after applying, was met with the dreaded “we’ll get back to you” email. Darn.
Today, I received a letter from Barclaycard in the mail, as I expected. Here’s what they had to say:
We have reviewed your application and determined that we are unable to approve you for a US Airways credit card for the following reason(s):
Our records show that you’ve already established the maximum allowable number of this product with us. Please let us know immediately if you did not apply for or receive this product previously
Interestingly, the letter also goes on to mention that a credit bureau report was not used in making this determination, and I haven’t seen any “ding” on my credit report since. So, good news there. As far as I can tell, this was a no harm, no foul attempt.
I’d be curious to hear of others who applied for a second card as well to see if any results were different.
Have you applied for a second US Airways MasterCard? If so, were you successful?
Jamie Larounis is an avid traveler, blogger and miles/points educator. Traveling well over 100,000 miles a year and staying in hotels for over 100 nights, he leverages miles, points and other deals to fly in first class cabins, and stay in 5-star hotels. The Forward Cabin shares his experiences, musings, reviews, tips, tricks, resources and industry news with you, the fellow traveler.
same story … was THRILLED that it did not result in a hard inquiry. Especially since i had no other cards to do an app-o-rama with….
Approved instantly for my wife, her second card. Hers had already transfered over to the Aviator Red card online (email said we would get the card in July), so maybe it technically wasn’t the same product for her?
Another data point, even though mine was also showing as Aviator red card online, I got declined and received exact same letter today. I opened mind in Jan I think. My wife, still shows US airways online and also got declined and received same letter. My parent got instant approval on other hand. Mother never had barclay and Dad closed his us airways last fall. I was regretting thinking a pair of hard pull was wasted. Glad those didn’t get result in pull.
Would love to see their algorithms for instant approval… To be a fly on the wall of those meetings…
Exact same result as you had.
I had one opened in 8/2014, and applied again end of March, 2015. Went to pending, but was approved after like 5 hours.
I was successful in getting two cards. First in August 2014 for 40,000 miles and second in January 2015 for 50,000 miles using a referral from my son’s account for an extra 10,000 in his account. Also got two in wife’s name – first in May 2014 and second in January 2015 using referral. Unsuccessful on second attempt for son with first card in October 2014 and second application in January 2015.
Got my first US Airways card in November 2014. Applied end of March for a second one and got instant approval (interesting, since I believe the card from November was not instantly approved). Then a couple days later I applied for a third Barclays card (different one, not US Airways) and got the pending message. But a week or so later they called me, and after moving some of my credit limit over from my other card, I was approved for the third card.
Can someone point me towards the link for the 50,000 offer? I don’t have a lot of time to search
It is no longer available.
Has travel bloggger James Larounis decided whether the grandfathered anniversary is worth it?