My wife got a super sweet offer on her Barclay Red Aviator card in the mail yesterday
- Spend $500 in November
- Spend $500 in December
- Spend $500 in January
And get 15,000 BONUS MILES.  That’s such a good offer it’s crazy.  Normally these kinds of offers are things like 2x bonus points on certain categories up to 2000 miles, or something like that.  But 16,500 miles is a TON – even just buying $500 gift cards with a $5.95 fee (what I find to be the easiest / laziest way to MS), you’re getting 11x on your spending, and nearly 1000 points per dollar of cost. Since the Barclay Aviator red card is one of the cards that qualifies you for the American reduced mileage awards, for your $1500 in spend (and < $20 in cost), you can get enough for a roundtrip ticket to anywhere in the US and Canada from many airports
(SEE ALSO: The 62 airports where you can fly anywhere in the US for under 8,000 miles)
On posting targeted offers
I do post (some) targeted offers, even though sometimes there isn’t a ton of value in posting all of them. Â Obviously it doesn’t do a whole lot of good for most people to read about MY awesome targeted offer, unless you have a way to get in on it :-).
When I post about a targeted offer, I do so in the hopes that some readers might not know about them and might be able to get in on the targeted offer.
A quick Google search indicates that this offer has happened pretty often over the course of a few months
My hypothesis was that this was a targeted offer by Barclays to people who got the card but haven’t been putting much spend on the card. Â With the annual fee coming up ($95), Barclays wants to give you a reason to bring the card out of the proverbial “sock drawer” and start spending on it, with the hopes that you’ll pay the $95 instead of canceling the card
Testing out the hypothesis
I actually was not sure when the annual fee on my wife’s card was – this was a card that she got as a US Airways 50,000 mile card and was converted to the Aviator card when US Airways and American Airlines combined.
I went back and checked our records, and found that the card anniversary date was 11/25/2014. Â Aha! Â So in order to take advantage of this offer, I’d have to pay the $89 fee. Â Actually, 15,000 bonus miles is probably enough to make it worth it but let’s see if we can find any data points.
I tried to Google for others who reported receiving this offer, and wrote down any information that was posted
- Offer for August, September, October – annual fee reported due in September
- August, September, October – annual fee due in August 2013
- June, July, August – today it will be one year from the date I opened the card.
So it definitely seems correlated to cards with an annual fee coming up.
I would love to hear any data points from readers – have you ever gotten an offer like this, and if so, when was it in relation to your card’s anniversary date?
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Got this amazing offer for my DW’s first of two aviator cards. Her opening date was end of October 2014. She got the offer end of September. For spend in October November and December.
She called for annual fee waiver when it posted. Got it AND 1000$ in 90 days for 5k points. They’re separate offers but I wonder if it has to be separate spend.
Also, u don’t need to enroll in this offer it should be attached the account. So if you’re nervous you can call and get the offer number.
One last point: no spend on that aviator. Maybe $50 In a year.
In the retention call my wife mentioned that she had the Citi card with the same benefits. That got them offering right away.
I have just finished up my spending for this offer (spend $500 August, September and October). The annual fee hit in August.
I also received a similar offer earlier in the year, on the same card: spend $750 in three months (December, January and February) and receive the 15,000 points.
However, I haven’t received any bonus offers on my second Aviator account.
I got this offer, but with a $750 monthly spend, in 1/15 for my US Airways Dividend Miles card I’d opened 9/14, so that’s a datapoint that shows this offer isn’t ALWAYS strictly tied to an upcoming annual fee due date.
So, if I spend a bit on my AA card then I will not get the offer? I would love to receive the offer, BTW AA (if you are listening in). I will definitely shift spending to this card for a couple of months.
very interesting report. By contrast, Barclay’s is no longer offering anything to keep customers with their Frontier cards. Last year, I got the fee waived, plus a similar offer to spend a little, and earn a nice haul of points. This year, nothing. Think Barclays’ realizes that with the new (spirit) model having taken over at Frontier, miles on that airline are now worth a ton less. I’m ready to close that account. Anybody else have better luck w/ B/Frontier?
Same result for me. I only opened the card last year. I called to see if I could get a retention offer “or I will probably close the card, as I’m not flying Frontier at all right now because the schedules are so bad.” The agent cheerfully closed the card. A few days later, I called back to see if I could get the $2K credit line transferred to another Barclay card and it was done. (They had to reopen the account, transfer the credit to my Arrival card and then close the account again.)
I called to ask the offer. The person on the phone told me that I was not yet qualified but I will get the offer in few months. My annual fee due on February.
I didn’t get the offer last week when I called, though I didn’t press very hard after they offered to waive my annual fee. I barely put anything on the card.
I convinced them to waive my annual fee on my Aviator since they had changed the benefits originally offered with my US Air MC, no more companion pass, bonus miles at the end of the year etc so I have not recieved a bonus offer.
Looks like this offer is back! http://offers.barclaycardus.com/QS!vrzD4xQzpigFBgIAAAAGCgFICgkxMTUwMDg3NDgKCjI2MzY3OTM5NDYJAHCE5AoLLTE5NTcxOTYwOTUF?BONUS_AMOUNT=&CAMPAIGNID=&CARD_IMG_ATTR_TEMP=&FNAME=&LAST4=&LNAME=&OFFER_MONTH1=&OFFER_MONTH2=&OFFER_MONTH3=&PARTY_ID=&PROMO_END_DT=&PROMO_START_DT=&SPEND_THRESHOLD=&email_addr=atlncegy%40yahoo.com&mailing_id=115008748&profile_id=2636793946&ASSOCIATION=&BRAND=&TPC_VALUE=&PARTNERNAME_FIRST_TEMP=&PARTNERNAME_SECOND_TEMP=&MARKETING_CELL=&ep_mid=115008748&ep_rid=2636793946
When’s your Annual Fee date? I think they send that out about a month or two before your a/f is scheduled to hit