Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is happening now! Follow us as Greg, Nick, and Stephen compete to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines before November 23rd. Who will complete the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
Barclays is once again sending out big spending offers to current cardholders. While the offers aren’t quite as high as those they sent a few months ago, you can once again get nearly a new cardmember-type bonus on an existing card, which will certainly make your Barclays card(s) worth using if you’ve been targeted.
The Deal
- Barclays is sending out targeted spending offers to existing cardholders. These offers appear to be going out on select Aviator Red, JetBlue Plus, Wyndham, Arrival, and Choice Privileges cards (though I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of similar offers on other Barclays cards as well). Reports so far indicate that most people are seeing one of two different offers:
- 5X miles / points for every $1 spent on grocery store, drug store and restaurant purchases, up to 20,000 miles, from 5/15/2021 to 7/31/2021 plus an additional 20,000 miles if you spend at least $3,000 on purchases from 5/15/2021 to 7/31/2021. (total of up to 40,000 bonus miles)
- 5X miles for every $1 spent on grocery store, drug store and restaurant purchases, up to 10,000 miles each month from 5/15/2021 to 7/31/2021.
- No direct link, keep your eye out for an email with a subject line like, “Earn bonus miles this summer!” for a link to enroll
Key Details
- Must enroll by 5/25/21
- This offer is targeted and you must enroll via the link in your email
- All miles earned from this promotion will appear on your statement 6-8 weeks after the end of the promotion. (and note that it did take about that long for the miles to post for the previous promotion, so I wouldn’t expect the bonus here to post until the end of September
Quick Thoughts
These offers are terrific if you get one since it is almost like getting a new cardmember bonus but on an existing account. We sometimes see targeted spending offers from other issuers, but nothing as generous as what Barclays has done recently. Some cardholders who were targeted for 60K bonuses just a few months ago report being targeted again here. Note the very short enrollment window: you must enroll by 5/25/21, so you’ll want to take care of this right away.
Obviously offer #1 above is superior since it also has the second bonus miles component — it would be possible to earn a total of 40K miles with just $4K in grocery store, drug store, and restaurant purchases during the offer window. The second bonus offers up to 10K miles/points each month, so you’ll need to spend $6K total ($2K/month x 3 months) to get a total of 30,000 points. That’s still a fantastic deal even if inferior.
It doesn’t appear that the offers vary by card but rather by cardholder, so it’s worth combing through your email to see if you can find the offer. We first received reports in Frequent Miler Insiders last night, so I’d start by looking through your email from Friday, May 21st.
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
Checking in to see if anyone has received points from this promo yet? Still nothing for me…
Hey Nick.
I received the 5x /40k AA card promo and I think I signed up before 5/25. I’ve put some spend on it and was just talking to my Barclays AA card rep and she didn’t see any promo applied to my account or any record that I ever receiving this promo. She asked that I fax a copy or print out an email and send to their PO Box for investigation. Did I screw up or is this normal to not ‘see’ promos applied? Thx
Hi David – Same thing happened to me. I called today to confirm that I was enrolled, and the customer service rep had no idea what I was talking about and didn’t see anything in my account. If you check out the comments on this site, this has been happening to other people too: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/targeted-barclays-spending-bonus-earning-5x-on-grocery-drugstore-restaurants-up-to-20k-bonus-miles/
Eventually, the customer service rep opened a case for me, but I’m not sure what will come of it. Hoping we’ll still get our points at the end of the promotion.
Thank you for posting this, Sarah. The promotion doesn’t appear on my account either, but I did do a screen shot which begins “Thank you for enrolling. You’ve successfully enrolled. All Aadvantage miles earned will be awarded to your account 6-8 weeks after the promotion ends.” There is then a long paragraph with terms of the offer. I’m going to assume that the promotion is real and the customer service reps just aren’t aware of it. Otherwise, I’ll fight it if I don’t see the additional miles by the end of September.
This happened to me also. I took screenshots. I called Customer service
and they opened up a case. I have heard zilch since then. They could
not even see I received the offer. Again I sent them original email AND
i took screen shot of when i enrolled. I better see my points in September! I never would put 4k on this card in 10 weeks!
Sarah/DSK/Kacie – Any updates yet?
I met the spending requirements a couple months ago but still not seeing any miles…I haven’t called Barclays yet but I have a bad feeling I may be in the same boat as you guys
Not yet but I looked at the offer and it says 6-8 weeks after the end of the promotion. My promotion ended July 31. So not unexpected (at least for my offer)
Yeah I saw the same thing, but my concern is that a lot of T&C contain similar language but most of the time the points post much quicker (for example T&C might state 6-8 weeks…but in reality the points post as soon as the statement closes or something along those lines).
This is particularly worrisome since Barclays seemed to be having issues properly tracking who signed up for the offer in the first place.
No points posted for me yet. Hoping they show up by the end of September. If they don’t show up, I’m tempted to file a complaint with the CFPB and elsewhere as Barclays seems to be no help since Customer Service has no idea what we’re talking about when we call, and filing a service ticket has yielded nothing.
Here we are towards the end of Sep and still no sign of the points. sigh
Thanks for posting. Was wondering about others. None for me yet either.
As noted in the post, last time they ran this it took the full 8 weeks or so for points to post. I’m not aware of anyone who didn’t get the points. Eight weeks from the end of the promotion would be tomorrow. Since that’s not a business day, I wouldn’t be stressing this until at least sometime next week and even then I wouldn’t be sighing too loudly until other people start reporting that they got the points and you (as in the general “you”, meaning anyone who signed up) don’t get them. I’m sure that the moment points post people will be shouting it from the rooftops – it’ll likely be hard to miss. In the meantime, these spending offers seem to be aimed at making sure people keep the card and so Barclays seems to be dragging them out the full timeline before posting them, but I’m not aware of Barclays selectively awarding (or failing to award) the points. Just be patient and I’d bet at least 500 points that the points post for everyone who registered.
Points are showing in my Barclays account (similar DP’s from DoC too)! Woohooooo
@Nick Reyes — Do you think you can just complete the second portion of Offer#1 and skip the first portion? So, just earn an additional 20,000 miles if you spend at least $3,000 on purchases from 5/15/2021 to 7/31/2021?
You will still earn bonus points on “portion 1” if you spend in the specified categories. No need to max it out. But if you just want to spend $3k on, say, taxes, that should work as well for the second part without earning you any 5X bonus.
Thanks, Nick! I used to know these things (way back in the Redbird/Vanilla reload days), but can I just buy Amazon and Uber gift cards at my local Kroger to help obtain the maximum bonus? I prefer those gift card types since they can easily and quickly be loaded to your Amazon or Uber account. I’m not sure if Kroger allows these purchases with a credit card, and I’m not sure if Barclays monitors these type or purchases (like the AMEX RATS). Anything you can share on these topics would be appreciated.
I guess I should have said “thanks, TravelGeek”?? Ned more coffee…
No experience with Barclays and gift cards, but I, too, prefer gift cards that can be loaded into accounts. So I buy Uber, Doordash, Amazon, Starbucks, Netflix, Google Play and Apple credits (but only small amounts for anything but Amazon since they are often available at greater discount elsewhere). I don’t expect any problems with this as I buy them together with regular groceries.
Fred Meyer (a Kroger company) happily takes credit cards for gift cards. Just have to remember to bring the physical card as I have found that their terminals don’t like my Google Pay phone (plus there is the concern about mobile payments in general discussed above).
Thanks!
I am guessing this is only for personal cards as I have 4 business cards and no offers.
Curious how the monthly cap works per month for 3 months when the promo only runs 2 months and a bit?
What monthly cap?
I was targeted for offer 2, which is capped at 10000 bonus points a month for 3 months but the offer only lasts 2.5 months.
Ah, got it. I didn’t look closely at the offers not available to me.
My guess would be that you can earn up to 10,000 points/miles in May even though you have only half a month to do it.
I have this offer on my Avaitor RED card. The offer says additional 5x miles. Does that you get total of 6 miles per $ spent ?
Yes
Thanks
My wife got 5x & 20,000 on $3K spending on her arrival.
Got the 5X / 40K point offer on my Barclays Rewards Mastercard
Have any Barclays business card holders been targeted?
P2 and I have 1 personal barclays card and 3 business barclays cards between us. Only the personal card was targeted.
“plus an additional 20,000 miles if you spend at least $3,000 on purchases from 5/15/2021 to 7/31/2021. (total of up to 40,000 bonus miles)”.
Can this $3,000 be any category purchase, or just grocery, drug store and restaurant purchases???
I received the “5x on groceries, restaurants, drugstores up to 10,000 points per month til July31” offer on my Choice Privileges card. I only use this card to autopay my Apple storage fee of 99cents each month and Since Barclays doesn’t make you pay any monthly statement less than $1, I get my storage for “free”
And I’m leery to use both my Barclays cards since I recently had fraud on BOTH my Wyndham AND my Choice cards! Since I have rarely used either card in the past 2 years, it was easy for their fraud department to catch these, but I wonder how this happened? So, be sure to check your statements carefully before each month !
How is Barclays with us buying gift cards at CVS? Do they have a RAT team as well? Or do they not care?
What does Barclays mean when they say in the T&C:
”Additional miles may not be earned if the merchant submits the purchase using a mobile or wireless card.”
Maybe ApplePay doesn’t count?
Yeah, I was wondering if Google Pay will count. Don’t have my Arrival card with me (traveling).
Any experience from previous promos?
I received the following offer on my Red Aviator. 6x up to 10,000 miles per month for May, June and July, for Grocery, Restaurant and Drug Stores. If my math is correct that’s 6x on up to $1,666 spending per month in these categories.
I received the 5x up to 20k plus add’l 20k offer on my JetBlue plus card. I did note that the terms state “an additional 5 TrueBlue points per $1” so I read that to mean on top of the 2 points per dollar I already earn on restaurants and grocery stores.