I’ve lately been prioritizing credit card signups with low spend requirements since I prefer putting spend on my U.S. Bank Smartly 4% card.
Last month I signed up for the Barclaycard American Airlines card which had an offer (now expired) for 70,000 points and no spend requirement. I was lucky to get an instant approval with $25,000 credit line.
I’ll happily pay the $99 fee in exchange for 70,000 American Airlines miles. My preference is to pay for flights with miles – even when booking economy flights – due to the cancelling flexibility when travel plans change.
More recently, the Hawaiian card 70,000 points offer came out, also from Barclaycard, and also with no spend requirement. Hawaiian miles can transfer to Alaska which often have good redemptions and are easily worth the $99 annual fee.
At first I was hesitant to add another personal card to my 5/24 count. I was also doubtful if I’d get another approval given the reports we’ve seen of Barclays not typically approving a second card within 6 months.
In the end I decided to lob in an application and see what happens. I got a pending result, and a few days later Barclays called me for more information. They asked me a few questions about job and income, and they inquired about transferring credit line from the American Airlines card to get this card approved. I happily obliged and they were able to approve the card by moving over $10k from my other card.
Some people are even having success at getting approved for both versions of the Barclay Hawaiian card (the other version has a $1,000 spend requirement), but I’m satisfied with the one for now.
At the end of the year I’ll cancel out both the American and Hawaiian cards to avoid paying the renewal fee.